LIBRARY 

OF  Tin: 


UNiyERsiTY.  OF  -California. 

GIFT   OF^ 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
^Accessions  No,  UjJ-fO  j .      Class  No. 


4^. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosQft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/educationlevanaOOjeanrich 


WORKS   BY  JEAN   PAUL 


TITAN. 

2  vols.    $  3.00. 


FLOWER,  FRUIT,  AND   THORN  PIECES. 

2  vols.    $2.75. 

LEVANA. 

1vol.     $1.50. 

The  above  are  published  in  uniform  size  and  style. 


TICKNOR  AND   FIELDS,  Publishers. 


L  E  V  A  N  A; 


OR, 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    EDUCATION, 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN 


OF 


JEAN  PAUL  rEIEDKICH  EICHTEE, 

AUTHOR  OF  "flower,  FRUIT,  AND  THORN  PIECES,"  "  TITAN,"  ETC,  ETC 


BOSTON: 


IJIITBRSITli 


TICKNOR    AND    FIELDS 

1863. 


University   Press: 

Welch,    Bigelow,    and    Company, 

Cambridge. 


To  Her  Majesty, 
CAROLINE,    QUEEN    OF    BAVARIA, 

WITH   THE  PROFOUNDEST  RESPECT  OF 

the  author. 

Most  Gracious  Queen  !  — 

THE  author  woiJd  consecrate  Levana  to  mothers  by  your 
royal  name,  as  the  banners  which  a  princess  has  worked 
receive  fresh  victorious  power. 

Your  Majesty  will  graciously  pardon  the  dedication  of  a  work 
which  Germany,  by  the  approbation  expressed  in  the  demand  for 
a  new,  improved  edition,  has  already  dedicated  to  a  Princess,  who, 
in  its  best  parts,  will  but  find  her  own  recollections. 

If,  even  in  the  lowest  ranks,  a  mother's  heart  is  woman's  honor, 
—  the  sun  which  gently  warms  and  dries  the  dew-drops  of  early 
tears,  —  this  sun  delights  the  beholder  most  when  it  stands  highest 
and  cherishes  the  distant  future,  and  when  a  noble  mother  multi- 
plies her  heart  as  well  as  her  beauty,  and  blesses  distant  ages  and 
countries  with  her  image. 

This  delight  becomes  still  greater  if  the  mother  also  is  the 
mother  of  her  coimtry,  and  raises  her  sceptre  like  a  magic  wand 
which  converts  tears  of  sorrow  into  tears  of  joy  ere  it  dries  them. 

Should  the  profoimd  respect  of  a  subject  forbid  him  to  express 
this  joy  in  a  Dedication  ? 

With  most  profound  respect, 

Your  Majesty's 

Most  obedient,  humble  servant, 

JEAN  PAUL  FR.   RIGHTER. 


TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 


T  a  time  when  the  public  mind  is  so  fully 
awakened  to  the  importance  of  educa- 
tion, it  appeared  to  the  Translator  that 
the  thoughts  of  one  of  the  greatest  Germans  on  the 
subject  were  worthy  of  deep  consideration ;  and 
he  offers  them  with  the  more  satisfaction,  because 
he  believes  it  impossible  either  for  the  advocates 
or  for  the  opponents  for  the  government  scheme 
of  education  to  draw  offensive  weapons  from  this 
arsenal.  For  Lev  ana  treats  neither  of  national 
nor  congregational  education :  it  elevates  neither 
state  nor  priest  into  educator  ;  but  it  devolves  that 
duty,  where  the  interest  ever  ought  to  be,  on  the 
parents,  and  particularly  on  the  mother. 

It  is  far  from  the  Translator's  object  to  dispar- 
age the  great  efforts  now  making  to  improve  the 
state  of  popular  education  ;  but  he  believes  that, 
in  propounding  general  systems,  it  is  too  much  for- 


VI  TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 

gotten  that  real  education  is  the  work  of  individu- 
als on  individuals.  It  may  be  necessary  —  it  is 
necessary  —  to  provide  instruction,  and,  as  far  as 
possible,  education,  for  the  classes  who  are  too 
ignorant  to  seek  it  for  themselves.  But  let  us  not, 
in  the  mania  for  systems,  forget  how  little  these 
alone  can  effect.  And,  further,  we  would  ask,  is 
the  education  of  the  upper  classes  so  perfect  that 
they  may  leave  all  care  for  it,  to  watch  only  over 
that  of  the  lower  ?  If  there  be  much  of  crime  — 
the  acknowledged  consequence  of  ignorance  — 
among  the  masses,  is  there  less  of  vice  —  the 
equally  sure  accompaniment  of  bad  education  — 
among  the  higher  grades  of  society  ? 

In  the  belief  that  Lev  ana  may  tend  much  to 
ameliorate  that  department  of  education  which  is 
most  neglected,  and  needs  most  care,  —  home 
training,  —  the  Translator  makes  no  apology  for 
clothing  it  in  an  English  dress.  He  is,  indeed, 
surprised  that  it  has  not  previously  been  presented 
to  the  English  reader.  But,  like  all  Richter's  writ- 
ings, Lev  ANA  is  peculiarly  characterized  by  that 
union  of  qualities  called  in  England  "  German." 
This  feature,  especially  when  displayed  in  a  work 
on  so  serious  a  subject  as  education,  and  being 
most  strongly  marked  in  the  introductory  chapters, 


TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE.  vii 

on  which  the  reception  of  a  book  so  much  depends, 
may  have  led  to  its  being  considered  unsuitable  to 
English  taste.  The  early  part,  indeed,  may  cause 
many  to  close  the  book,  who  would  find  much  both 
to  interest  and  instruct  in  a  patient  perusal  of  the 
whole  work,  combining  as  it  does,  in  a  remarkable 
degree,  sound  practical  sense  with  fanciful  and 
varied  illustration.  The  acknowledged  difficulty 
of  Richter's  style  has  also,  doubtless,  had  a  deter- 
ring effect.  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  his 
writings  will  be  able  to  appreciate  the  difficulties 
which  have  beset  the  Translator,  and  will  be  the 
least  inclined  to  judge  harshly  the  shortcomings  of 
the  translation,  as  compared  with  its  great  origi- 
nal. For  who  —  save  Carlyle  —  can  hope  to  do 
justice  to  the  humorous,  pathetic,  poetic  Richter  ; 
to  him  whom  his  countrymen  call  "  Jean  Paul,  der 
Einzige  "  ? 

The  Translator  thinks  it  right  to  add,  that  he 
has  occasionally  omitted,  or  compressed,  a  few  sen- 
tences, where  the  general  usefulness  of  the  work 
was  obviously  increased  by  so  doing.  This  discre- 
tion has,  however,  been  very  sparingly  used,  and  in 
no  case  so  as  to  interfere  with  the  scope  of  the 
original. 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 


^OYERRE  only  required  from  a  good  di- 
rector of  the  ballet  —  besides  the  art 
of  dancing  —  geometry,  music,  poetry, 
painting,  and  anatomy.  But  to  write 
upon  education,  means  to  write  upon  almost  every- 
thing at  once ;  for  it  has  to  care  for,  and  watch 
over,  the  development  of  an  entire,  though  minia- 
ture, world  in  little,  —  a  microcosm  of  the  micro- 
cosm. All  the  energies  with  which  nations  have 
labored  and  signalized  themselves  once  existed  as 
germs  in  the  hand  of  the  educator.  If  we  carried 
the  subject  still  further,  every  century,  every  na- 
tion, and  even  every  boy  and  every  girl,  would 
require  a  distinct  system  of  education,  a  different 
primer,  and  domestic  French  governess,  &c. 

If,  consequently,  on  a  subject  like  this,  only  acta 
sanctorum,  or,  more  correctly,  sanctificandorum 
(acts  less  of  saints  than  of  those  to  be  made 
saints),  can  be  written,  and  if  a  folio  be  nothing 
more  than  a  fragment,  there  cannot  be,  on  such  an 
inexhaustible  subject,  one  book  too  much,  even 
after  the  best,  except  the  worst ;  and  where  frag- 


X  AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 

ments  alone  are  possible,  all  that  are  possible  com- 
plete the  whole. 

The  Author  trusts  thus  to  excuse  his  boldness  as 
well  as  his  poverty  ;  for  both,  as  in  the  state,  are 
nearly  connected.  He  has  not  read  everything 
which  has  been  written  upon  education,  but  here 
and  there  something.  First  and  last  he  names 
Eousseau's  Emile.  No  preceding  work  can  be 
compared  to  his  ;  the  succeeding  imitators  and 
transcribers  seem  to  resemble  him  more.  Not 
E/Ousseau's  individual  rules,  many  of  which  may 
be  erroneous  without  injury  to  the  whole,  but  the 
spirit  of  education  which  fills  and  animates  the 
work,  has  shaken  to  their  foundations  and  purified 
all  the  school-rooms  and  even  the  nurseries  in 
Europe.  In  no  previous  work  on  education  was 
the  ideal  so  richly  and  beautifully  combined  with 
actual  observation  as  in  his.  He  was  a  man,  could 
therefore  easily  become  a  child,  and  so  he  mani- 
fested and  saved  the  nature  of  children.  Basedow 
was  his  intelligent  translator  and  publisher  in 
Germany,  —  this  land  of  pedagogopaedists  (of  edu- 
cation of  children's  educators)  and  of  love  of 
children,  —  and  Pestalozzi  is  now  confirming 
Rousseau  among  the  people. 

Individual  rules,  without  the  spirit  of  education, 
resemble  a  dictionary  without  a  grammar  of  the 
language.,  A  book  of  rules  is  not  merely  incapable 
of  exhausting  and  distinguishing  the  infinite  vari- 
ety of  individual  dispositions  and  circumstances  ; 
but,  even  granting  it  were  perfect  itself,  and  able 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE.  XI 

to  make  others  perfect,  it  yet  would  but  be  like  a 
system  of  remedies  laboring  to  counteract  some 
one  symptom  of  a  disease  ;  recommending,  for  in- 
stance, something  of  a  reducing  nature,  to  be  taken 
before  fainting,  and  to  prevent  tingling  in  the  ears, 
and  unnatural  brilliancy  of  eye ;  a  tonic  to  cure 
paleness  and  coldness  of  the  face ;  an  aperient  for 
nausea.  But  this  is  worthless  !  Do  not,  like  com- 
mon educators,  water  the  individual  branches,  but 
the  roots,  and  they  will  moisten  and  unfold  the 
rest.  Wisdom  and  morality  are  no  ants'  colonies 
of  separate,  co-operating  workmen,  but  organic 
parents  of  the  mental  future,  which  only  require 
animating  nourishment.  We  merely  reverse  the 
ignorance  of  the  savages,  who  sowed  gunpowder 
instead  of  making  it,  when  we  attempt  to  com- 
pound what  can  only  be  developed. 

But  although  the  spirit  of  education,  always 
watching  over  the  whole,  is  nothing  more  than  an 
endeavor  to  liberate,  by  means  of  a  freeman,  the 
ideal  human  being  which  lies  concealed  in  every 
child  ;  and  though,  in  the  application  of  the  divine 
to  the  child's  nature,  it  must  scorn  some  useful 
things,  some  seasonable,  individual,  or  immediate 
ends ;  yet  it  must  incorporate  itself  in  the  most 
definite  applications,  in  order  to  be  clearly  mani- 
fested. 

Here  the  Author  differs  —  but  to  his  philosoph- 
ical disadvantage  —  from  those  transcendental  su- 
perintendents of  the  school-room  slates,  who  write 
thereon  with  so  round  a  piece  of  chalk,  that  one 


xii  AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 

may  find  in  their  broad  strokes  whatever  he  de- 
sires, and  who  lay  down  a  complete  Brownian 
system  of  education  in  the  two  words,  —  strong, 
weak  ;  though,  indeed.  Brown's  disciple,  Schmidt, 
only  uttered  one  word,  —  strong.  Dr.  Tamponet 
declared  that  he  would  trace  heresies  in  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  if  any  one  desired  it ;  our  age,  on  the  con- 
trary, knows  how  to  find  a  Lord's  Prayer  in  every 
heresy.  A  mother  who  has  a  particular  child  to 
educate  can  certainly  extract  no  advantage  from 
such  philosophical  indifi'erentism ;  although  that 
class  of  fine,  high-sounding  compilations  always 
bears  witness  to  a  certain  amount  of  artistic  talent 
in  their  sonorousness  and  their  theft ;  hence,  Gall 
justly  found  for  this  sense  a  place  between  the 
organs  of  music  and  purloining. 

But  this  language  does  not  belong  to  the  Pref- 
ace, and  the  object  of  this  work  has  forbidden  it  to 
find  a  place  in  the  book  itself;  wherefore,  this  may 
be  regarded  in  form  as  my  most  serious  produc- 
tion, to  which  only  a  short,  occasional,  comic 
Appendix  shall  be  added. 

The  reader  will  please  to  take  it  patiently  if  he 
find  what  has  been  already  printed  again  printed 
here.  What  has  been  printed  is  necessary  as  the 
bond  and  bast-matting  of  what  has  not  been 
printed  ;  but  the  bast-matting  must  not  cover  the 
whole  garden,  instead  of  merely  tying  up  the  trees. 
But  there  are  two  still  better  excuses.  Known 
rules  in  education  gain  new  force  if  new  expe- 
rience verifies  them.     The  Author  has  three  times 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE.  xiu 

been  in  the  position  of  trying  them  upon  different 
children  of  all  ages  and  talents  ;  and  he  now  en- 
joys with  his  own  the  pedagogic  jus  trium  libero- 
rum  (law  of  three  children)  ;  and  every  other 
person's  experience  related  in  this  book  has  been 
made  his  own.  Secondly,  printing-ink  now  is  like 
sympathetic  ink,  it  becomes  as  quickly  invisible  as 
visible  ;  wherefore  it  is  good  to  repeat  old  thoughts 
in  the  newest  books,  because  the  old  works  in 
which  they  stand  are  not  read.  New  translations 
of  many  truths,  as  of  foreign  standard  works,  must 
be  given  forth  every  half-century.  And,  indeed, 
I  wish  that  even  old  German  standard  books  were 
turned  into  new  German  from  time  to  time,  and 
so  could  find  their  way  into  the  circulating  libra- 
ries. 

Why  are  there  flower  and  weed  gleanings  of 
everything,  but  no  wine  or  corn  gleanings  of  the 
innumerable  works  on  education  ?  Why  should 
one  single  good  observation  or  rule  be  lost  because 
it  is  imprisoned  in  some  monstrous  folio,  or  blown 
away  in  some  single  sheet  ?  For  dwarfs  and 
giants,  even  in  books,  do  not  live  long.  Our  age, 
this  balloon,  or  air-ship,  which,  by  simultaneous 
lighting  of  new  lamps,  and  throwing  out  of  old 
ballast,  has  constantly  mounted  higher  and  higher, 
might  now,  I  should  think,  cease  fo  throw  out,  and 
rather  lovingly  endeavor  to  collect  than  to  disperse 
the  old. 

However  little  so  disjointed  a  collection  of 
thoughts  could  teach  rules,   it  would  yet  arouse 


XIV  AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 

and  sharpen  the  educational  sense,  from  which 
they  originally  sprung.  Therefore  every  mother 
—  still  better  every  bride  —  ought  to  read  the 
many-volumed  and,  in  another  sense,  many-sided 
revision  of  education,  to  which  no  nation  can  op- 
pose anything  similar  ;  she  should  read  it,  and  cut 
and  polish  herself,  like  a  precious  stone,  by  it  on 
every  side,  so  that  her  individuality  of  character 
may  all  the  more  readily  discover,  protect,  revere, 
and  cherish  the  dim  manifestations  of  it  in  her 
child. 

Something  very  diiBferent  from  such  a  progres- 
sive cabinet  of  noble  thoughts,  or  even  from  my 
weak  Levana,  with  her  fragments  in  her  arms,  is 
the  usual  kind  of  complete  system  of  education 
which  one  person  after  another  has  written,  and 
will  write.  It  is  difficult,— I  mean  the  end,  not 
the  means.  For  it  is  very  easy  to  proceed  with 
bookbinder's  and  bookmaker's  paste,  and  fasten 
together  a  thousand  selected  thoughts  with  five  of 
your  own,  especially  if  you  conscientiously  remark 
in  the  Preface  that  you  have  availed  yourself  of 
the  labors  of  your  predecessors,  yet  make  no  men- 
tion of  one  in  the  work  itself,  but  sell  such  a  min 
iature  library  in  one  volume  to  the  reader  as  a 
mental  facsimile  of  yourself.  How  much  better 
in  this  case  were  a  hole-maker  than  a  liole-hider  ! 
How  much  better  were  it  if  associated  authors  (I 
mean  those  friendly  hundreds  who  move  along  one 
path,  uttering  precisely  the  same  sound)  entirely 
died  out,  —  as  Humboldt  tells  us  that  in  the  tropi- 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE.  xv 

cal  regions  there  are  none  of  those  sociable  plants 
which  make  our  forests  monotonous,  but  next 
each  tree  a  perfectly  different  one  grows.  A  diary 
about  an  ordinary  child  would  be  much  better 
than  a  book  upon  children  by  an  ordinary  writer. 
Yes,  every  man's  opinions  about  education  would 
be  valuable  if  he  only  wrote  what  he  did  not  copy. 
The  author,  unlike  a  partner,  should  always  only 
say  "  I,"  and  no  other  word. 

The  first  part  of  this  work  treats  at  large  of  the 
budding  —  the  second  and  third  of  the  blossoming 
—  season  of  childhood.  In  the  first,  the  three 
early  years,  like  the  academic  triennium,  after 
which  the  gate  of  the  soul,  language,  is  opened, 
are  the  object  of  care  and  observation.  Here,  edu- 
cators are  the  Hours  who  open  or  close  the  gates 
of  heaven.  Here,  true  education,  the  developing^ 
is  yet  possible  ;  by  whose  means  the  long  second, 
the  curative^  may  be  spared.  For  the  child,  —  yet 
in  native  innocence,  before  his  parents  have  become 
his  serpents  on  the  tree,  —  speechless,  still  unsus- 
ceptible of  verbal  empoisonment,  —  led  by  customs, 
not  by  words  and  reasons,  therefore  all  the  more 
easily  moved  on  the  narrow  and  small  pinnacle  of 
sensuous  experience  ;  —  for  the  child,  I  say,  on 
this  boundary-line  between  the  monkey  and  the 
man,  the  most  important  era  of  life  is  contained  in 
the  years  which  immediately  follow  his  non-exist- 
ence, in  which,  for  the  first  time,  he  colors  and 
moulds  himself  by  companionship  with  others. 
The  parent's  hand  may  coscr  ftiid>&lielter  the  ger- 


(x 


xvi  AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 

minating  seed,  but  not  the  luxuriant  tree  :  conse- 
quently, first  faults  are  the  greatest ;  and  mental 
maladies,  unlike  the  small-pox,  are  the  more  dan- 
gerous the  earlier  they  are  taken.  Every  new 
educator  effects  less  than  his  predecessor  ;  until  at 
last,  if  we  regard  all  life  as  an  educational  institu- 
tion, a  circumnavigator  of  the  world  is  less  in- 
fluenced by  all  the  nations  he  has  seen  than  by  his 
nurse. 

At  least  this  book  has  been  composed  with  warm- 
est love  for  the  little  beings,  the  delicate  flower- 
gods  of  a  soon  fading  Eden.  May  Levana,  the 
motherly  goddess,  who  was  formerly  entreated  to 
give  a  father's  heart  to  fathers,  hear  the  prayer 
which  the  title  of  this  book  addresses  to  her,  and, 
in  doing  so,  justify  both  it  and  this.  The  demands 
of  the  state  or  of  learning,  unfortunately,  rob  the 
child  of  half  its  father.  The  education  of  most 
fathers  is  but  a  system  of  rules  to  keep  the  child  at 
a  respectful  distance  from  them,  and  to  form  him 
more  with  regard  to  their  quiet  than  his  powers  ; 
or,  at  most,  under  a  tornado  of  wrath,  to  impart  as 
much  meal  of  instruction  as  he  can  scatter.  But  I 
would  ask  men  of  business  what  education  of  souls 
rewards  more  delightfully  and  more  immediately 
than  that  of  the  innocent,  who  resemble  rosewood, 
which  imparts  its  odor  even  while  being  carved  and 
shaped  ?  Or  what  now  remains  to  the  decaying 
world  —  among  so  many  ruins  of  what  is  noblest 
and  ancientest  —  except  children,  the  pure  beings 
yet  unfalsified  by  the  age  and  the  world  ?     Only 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE.  xvii 

they,  with  a  higher  object  than  that  for  which  they 
were  formerly  used,  can  behold  futurity  and  truth 
in  the  magic  mirror,  and  with  bandaged  eyes 
draw  the  precious  lot  from  the  wheel  of  chance. 
The  words  that  the  father  speaks  to  his  children  in 
the  privacy  of  home  are  not  heard  by  the  world ; 
but,  as  in  whispering-galleries,  they  are  clearly 
heard  at  the  end,  and  by  posterity. 

It  would  be  my  greatest  reward  if,  at  the  end  of 
twenty  years,  some  reader  as  many  years  old  should 
return  thanks  to  me,  that  the  book  which  he  is 
then  reading  was  read  by  his  parents. 

JEAN  PAUL  FR.  RICHTER. 
Baireuth,  May  2, 1806. 


>>^ 


Contents. 


FIRST    FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  Pagb 

I.  Importance  of  Education 1 

II.  Inaugural  Discourse  at  the  Johanneum-Paullinum  ; 

OR,  Proof  that  Education  effects  little    .        .       5 
Ul.  Importance  of  Eductation 20 


SECOND    FRAGMENT. 

I.  Spirit  and  Principle  of  Education    ....  29 
n.  To  Discover  and  to  Appreciate  the  Individuality 

of  the  Ideal  Man 36 

in.   On  the  Spirit  of  the  Age 42 

IV.  Religious  Education       . 53 

THIRD    FRAGMENT. 

I.  The  Beginning  of  Education 67 

II.  The  Joyousness  of  Children 76 

III.  Games  of  Children 82 

IV.  Children's  Dances 95 

V.  Music 98 

VI.  Commands,  Prohibitions,  Punishments,  and  Crying  100 

VII.  Punishments 109 


XX  CONTENTS. 

Vni.   Screaming  and  Crying  of  Children      .        .        .        117 
IX.  On  the  Trustfulness  of  Children     ....    122 


APPENDIX   TO    THE    THIRD    FRAGMENT. 
On  Physical  Education 127 

COMIC   APPENDIX   AND   EPILOGUE   TO   THE   FIRST   VOLUME. 

A  dreamed  Letter  to  the  late  Professor  Gellert,  in 
which  the  Author  begs  for  a  Tutor      ....    148 


FOURTH    FRAGMENT. 

ON    FEMALE    EDUCATION. 

1 161 

II.   On  the  Destination  of  the  Female  Sex      .       .  168 

III.  Nature  of  Women 175 

IV.  Education  of  Girls 188 

V.  Private  Instructions  of   a  Prince  to  the   Gov- 
erness of  his  Daughter 226 


FIFTH    FRAGMENT. 
I.  On  the  Education  of  a  Prince 241 

SIXTH    FRAGMENT. 

ON    THE    MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS. 

1 277 

n.  Truthfulness 299 

III.  Education  of  the  Affections 310 

IV.  Supplementary  Appendix  to  Moral  Education  .  825 


CONTENTS.  xxi 


SEVENTH    FRAGMENT. 

I.  On  the  Development  of  the  Desire  for  Intellec- 
tual Progress 342 

II.   Speech  and  Writing 345 

in.   Attention,  and  the  Power  of  Adaptive  Combina- 
tion   353 

IV.  Development  of  Wit 362 

V.   Development    of    Reflection,    Abstraction,    and 
Self-Knowledge  ;  together  with  an  extra  Para- 
graph ON  THE  Powers  of  Action  and  Business  .    368 
VI.  On  THE  Education  of  the  Recollection,  —  not  of 

THE  Memory 370 


EIGHTH    FRAGMENT. 

I.   Development  of  the  Sense  of  Beauty      .        .        .    378 
n.  Classical  Education 384 


NINTH    FRAGMENT,  or  Conclusion     ....    390 


LEVANA 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF   EDUCATION. 


FIRST   FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  Importance  of  Education,  §§  1-3.  —  Chap.  IT.  Discourse 
against  its  Influence,  §§  4  - 15.  —  Chap.  III.  Discourse  for  tlie  same, 
§^16-20. 

CHAPTEE    I. 

IMPORTANCE    OF   EDUCATION. 


§    1. 


HEN  Antipater  demanded  fifty  children  as 
hostages  from  the  Spartans,  they  offered  him, 
in  their  stead,  a  hundred  men  of  distinction  ; 
unlike  ordinary  educators,  who  precisely  re- 
verse the  offering.  The  Spartans  thought  rightly  and 
nobly.  In  the  world  of  childhood  all  posterity  stands  be- 
fore us,  upon  which  we,  like  Moses  upon  the  promised 
land,  may  only  gaze,  but  not  enter ;  and  at  the  same  time 
it  renews  for  us  the  ages  of  the  young  world,  behind 
which  we  must  appear ;  for  the  child  of  the  most  civil- 
ized capital  is  a  born  Otaheitan,  and  the  one-year-old 
Sans-culotte  a  first  Christian,  and  the  last  children  of  the 
earth  came  upon  the  world  with  the  paradise  of  our  first 
parents.     So,  according  to  Bruyn,  the   children  of  the 

1  A 


2  *  LEVANA. 

Samojeds  are  beautiful,  and  only  the  parents  ugly.  If 
there  were  a  perfect  and  all-powerful  system  of  education, 
and  a  unity  of  educators  with  themselves  and  with  one 
another ;  then,  since  each  generation  of  children  begins 
the  history  of  the  world  anew,  the  immediate,  and  through 
it  the  distant  future,  into  which  we  can  now  gaze  and 
grasp  so  little,  would  stand  much  more  fairly  in  our 
power.  For  deeds  and  books  —  the  means  by  which  we 
have  hitherto  been  able  to  work  upon  the  world  —  al- 
ways find  it  already  defined,  and  hardened  and  full  of 
people  like  ourselves;  only  by  education  can  we  sow 
upon  a  pure,  soft  soil  the  seeds  of  poison  or  of  honey- 
bearing  flowers ;  and  as  the  gods  to  the  first  men,  so  do 
we,  physical  and  spiritual  giants  to  children,  descend  to 
these  little  ones,  and  form  them  to  be  great  or  small.  It 
is  a  touching  and  a  mighty  thought  that  now,  before  their 
educator,  the  great  spirits  and  teachers  of  our  immediate 
posterity  creep,  as  the  sucklings  of  his  milk-store,  —  that 
he  guides  future  suns,  like  little  wandering  stars,  in  his 
leading-strings.  And  it  is  all  the  more  important  because 
he  can  neither  know  whether  he  has  before  him,  to  un- 
fold to  good  or  evil,  a  hell-god  for  humanity,  or  a  pro- 
tecting and  light-giving  angel ;  nor  can  foresee  at  what 
dangerous  moment  of  futurity  the  magician,  who,  trans- 
formed into  a  little  child,  now  plays  before  him,  will  rise 
up  a  giant. 


Our  immediate  future  demands  thought :  our  earth  is 
filled  with  gunpowder,  —  Hke  the  age  of  the  migration  of 
nations,  ours  prepares  itself  for  spiritual  and  political 
wanderings,  and  under  all  state  buildings,  professorial 
chairs,  and  temples  the  earth  quakes.     Do  you  know 


IMPORTANCE    OF    EDUCATION.  3 

whether  the  little  boy  who  plucks  flowers  at  your  side 
may  not  one  day,  from  his  island  Corsica,  descend  as  a 
war-god,  into  a  stormy  universe,  to  play  with  storms  and 
to  destroy,  or  to  purify  and  to  sow  ?  Would  it  then  be 
indifferent  whether,  in  educating  him,  you  had  been  his 
Fenelon,  his  Cornelia,  or  his  Dubois  ?  For,  although  you 
might  not  be  able  to  break  or  bend  the  power  of  genius,  — 
the  deeper  the  sea,  the  more  precipitous  the  coast,  —  yet 
in  the  most  important  initiatory  decade  of  life,  in  the  first, 
at  the  opening  dawn  of  all  feelings,  you  might  surround 
and  overlay  the  slumbering  lion  energies  with  all  the 
tender  habits  of  a  gentle  heart  and  all  the  bands  of  love. 
Whether  an  angel  or  a  devil  educate  that  great  genius  is 
of  far  more  importance  than  whether  a  learned  doctor  or 
a  Charles  the  Simple  teach  him. 

Although  a  system  of  education  must,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, provide  for  the  beings  endowed  with  genius ;  since 
these,  though  they  seldom  arise,  yet  alone  rule  the  world's 
history,  either  as  leaders  of  souls,  or  of  bodies,  or  of  both  ; 
yet  would  such  a  system  too  much  resemble  a  practical 
exposition  of  how  to  conduct  one's  self  in  case  of  winning 
the  great  prize,  if  it  did  not  observe  that  the  multitude  of 
mediocre  talents  on  which  a  great  one  can  act  are  quite 
as  important  in  the  mass  as  the  man  of  genius  is  in  the 
individual.  And  therefore,  since,  on  the  one  hand,  you 
give  to  posterity,  as  alms  to  a  beggar,  through  children  ; 
and,  on  the  other,  must  send  these  last,  like  unarmed 
men,  into  a  hidden  period  whose  poisonous  gales  you 
know  not ;  so  there  is  nothing  more  important  to  pos- 
terity, than  whether  you  send  forth  your  pupil  as  the 
seed-corn  of  a  harvest,  or  the  powder-train  of  a  mine, 
which  destroys  itself  and  everything  with  it :  and  nothing 
is  more  important  to  the  child,  than  whether  you  have  or 


4  LEVANA. 

have  not  given  him  a  magic  jewel  which  may  preserve 
and  conduct  him  uninjured. 

Let  a  child  be  more  holy  to  you  than  the  present, 
which  consists  of  things  and  matured  men.  By  means 
of  the  child,  —  although  with  difficulty,  —  by  means  of  the 
short  lever-arm  of  humanity,  you  set  in  motion  the  long 
one,  whose  mighty  arc  you  can  scarcely  define  in  the 
height  and  depth  of  time.  But  there  is  something  else 
you  certainly  know,  —  namely,  that  the  moral  develop- 
ment—  which  is  education,  as  the  intellectual  is  instruc- 
tion —  knows  and  fears  no  time  nor  futurity.  In  this  you 
give  to  the  child  a  heaven  with  a  pole  star,  which  may 
ever  guide  him  in  whatever  new  countries  he  may  after- 
wards reach. 

§3. 

A  perfect  child  would  be  a  heavenly  aurora  of  the 
soul ;  at  least  its  appearance  would  not  be  so  variously 
restrained  and  so  difficult  as  that  of  a  perfect  man.  On 
him  everything,  from  the  state  down  to  himself,  exercises 
a  forming  influence  ;  but  on  the  fresh  child,  parents  repeat 
with  full  power  the  lawgiving,  moulding,  character  of 
Lycurgus  and  of  Moses ;  they  can  separate  their  pupil 
from  others,  and  form  him  without  interference,  better 
than  a  Spartan  or  Jewish  state  could  do.  Consequently 
one  ought  to  expect  more  from  the  unlimited  monarchy 
of  parents.  Children  living  in  this  kingdom,  without 
Salic  law,  and  in  such  an  overflow  of  laws  and  lawgivers 
that  the  rulers  are  often  more  numerous  than  the  ruled, 
and  the  governing  house  larger  than  the  governed,  —  hav- 
ing everywhere  before  them  cabinet  orders,  and  offended 
majesties,  and  most  rapid  mandata  sine  clausula^  and  be- 
hind the  glass  the  exalted  sceptre  of  the  rod,  —  possessing 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.      5 

in  their  sovereign  their  bread-master,  as  well  as  their 
pain  and  pleasure  master,  and  protected  against  him  by 
no  foreign  power  ;  for  maltreatment  of  slaves  is  pun- 
ished in  many  countries,  even  of  cattle  in  England,  but 
nowhere  of  children,  —  children,  then,  thus  absolutely 
governed  without  opposition  party,  or  anti-ministerial 
gazette,  and  without  representatives,  should  issue,  one 
would  think,  out  of  this  smallest  state  within  the  state, 
far  better  educated  than  grown-up  persons  educated  in 
the  greatest  of  all  educational  estabhshments,  the  state 
itself. 

Nevertheless,  both  educational  establishments  and  states 
seem  to  work  so  uniformly,  that  it  is  worth  while,  next 
to  the  necessity  of  education,  to  consider,  in  the  two  fol- 
lowing discourses,  its  possibility. 


CHAPTER   II. 


INAUGURAL   DISCOURSE    AT    THE    JOHANNEUM-PAULLINUM  ; 
OR,    PROOF   THAT    EDUCATION   EFFECTS    LITTLE. 

§4. 

MOST  honored  Inspector  of  Schools,  Rector,  Con- 
and  Sub-rector,  master  of  the  third  class !  most 
worthy  teacher  of  the  lower  classes  and  fellow-laborers  ! 
I  hope  I  shall,  to  the  best  of  my  abilities,  express  my 
pleasure  at  being  inducted  as  lowest  teacher  into  your 
educational  establishment,  by  entering  on  my  post  of 
honor  with  the  proof  that  school  education,  as  well  as 
home  education,  has  neither  evil  consequences,  nor  any 


6  LEVANA. 

other.  If  I  am  so  fortunate  as  to  lead  us  all  to  a  quiet 
conviction  of  this  absence  of  consequences,  I  may  also 
possibly  obtain  that  we  shall  all  fill  our  laborious  ofiices 
easily  and  cheerfully,  without  boasting,  and  with  a  cer- 
tain confidence  that  needs  fear  nothing ;  every  day  we 
shall  walk  in  and  out  among  the  pupils,  sit  on  our  teach- 
ing-chair as  on  an  easy-chair,  and  let  everything  take  its 
own  course. 

First,  I  believe,  I  must  set  forth  who  are  the  educators 
and  complete  fashioners  of  children,  —  for  fashioned,  in 
one  way  or  another,  they  are ;  and  in  which  way,  rests 
with  and  in  us ;  —  and  afterwards  I  will  naturally  touch 
upon  ourselves,  and  point  out  the  easy  change  which  may 
be  effected. 

§5. 

Whence  comes  it  that  hitherto  no  age  has  spoken,  coun- 
selled, and  done  so  much  about  education  as  our  own; 
and  again,  among  nations,  none  so  much  as  Germany, 
into  which  Rousseau's  winged  seeds  have  been  blown 
out  of  France  and  ploughed  in  ?  The  ancients  wrote  and 
did  little  for  it ;  their  schools  were  rather  for  young  men 
than  children,  and  in  the  philosophical  schools  of  Athens, 
the  learner  frequently  was,  or  might  be,  older  than  the 
teacher.  Sparta  was  a  Stoa,  or  garrison-school,  at  once 
for  parents  and  children.  The  Romans  had  Grecian 
slaves  for  their  schoolmasters,  and  yet  their  children  be- 
came neither  Greeks  nor  slaves.  In  the  ages  when  the 
great  and  glorious  deeds  of  Christendom,  and  knighthood, 
and  freedom  rose  like  stars  on  the  dark  horizon  of  Europe, 
school  buildings  lay  scattered  around  as  mere  dull,  little, 
dark,  savage  huts,  or  monks'  cells.  And  what  have  the 
political  vowels  of  Europe,  the   English,   whose   island 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.      7 

is  a  school  of  citizens,  and  whose  election  every  seven 
years  is  a  wandering  seven-day  Sunday  school  ?  —  what 
have  they  hitherto  better  than  mere  establishments  for 
mal-education  ?  Where  do  the  children  more  resemble 
the  parents  —  and  to  anything  else  than  a  mirror  of  him- 
self, be  it  a  flat,  a  concave,  or  a  convex  one,  the  teacher 
cannot  wish  to  mould  and  pohsh  his  pupil  —  than  even  in 
those  places  where  the  educators  are  silent,  among  sav- 
ages, Greenlanders,  and  Quakers  ? 

And  the  further  one  looks  back  through  past  ages,  to 
the  hoary  nations  of  antiquity,  the  fewer  school-books  and 
Cyropedias  —  in  fact,  from  w^ant  of  all  books  —  were 
there :  all  the  more  was  the  man  lost  in  the  state ;  all  the 
less  was  the  woman,  who  might  have  educated,  formed 
for  it :  nevertheless,  every  child  was  the  image  of  its  par- 
ents, which  is  more  than  the  best  ought  to  desire,  since 
God  can  only  behold  his  own  image  in  men  as  a  carica- 
ture. And  are  not  our  present  improved  educational  in- 
stitutions a  proof  that  men  can  raise  themselves  freely 
and  without  aid  from  bad  to  better,  and,  consequently,  to 
all  other  establishments  of  a  similar  kind  ? 

§6.  • 

But  who  then  educates  in  nations  and  ages  ?  —  Both  I 
—  The  living  time,  which,  for  twenty  or  thirty  years 
struggles  unceasingly  with  men  through  actions  and  opin- 
ions, tossing  them  to  and  fro  as  with  a  sea  of  waves,  must 
soon  wash  away  or  cover  the  precipitate  of  the  short 
school  years,  in  which  only  one  man,  and  only  words 
taught.  The  century  is  the  spiritual  climate  of  man,  mere 
education  the  hot-house  and  forcing-pit,  out  of  which  he 
is  taken  and  planted  forever  in  the  other.  By  century  is 
here  meant  the  real  century,  which  may  as  often  truly 


8  LEVANA. 

consist  of  ten  years,  as  of  ten  tliousand,  and  which  is 
dated,  like  religious  eras,  only  from  great  men. 

What  can  insulated  words  do  against  living  present 
action  ?  The  present  has  for  new  deeds  also  new  words ; 
the  teacher  has  only  dead  languages  for  the,  to  all  appear- 
ance, dead  bodies  of  his  examples. 

The  educator  has  himself  been  educated,  and  is  already 
possessed,  even  without  his  knowledge',  by  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  which  he  assiduously  labors  to  banish  out  of  the 
youth  (as  a  whole  city  criticises  the  spirit  of  the  whole 
city).  Only,  alas!  every  one  believes  himself  to  stand  so 
precisely  and  accurately  in  the  zenith  of  the  universe, 
that,  according  to  his  calculation,  all  suns  and  nations 
must  culminate  over  his  head ;  and  he  himself,  hke  the 
countries  at  the  equator,  cast  no  shadow  save  into  himself 
alone.  For  were  this  not  so,  how  could  so  many  —  as  I 
also  hereafter  propose  to  do  —  speak  of  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  when  every  word  implies  a  rescue  from,  and  eleva- 
tion above  it;  just  as  we  cannot  perceive  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  tide  in  the  ocean,  but  only  at  its  boundaries, 
the  coasts.  In  like  manner,  a  savage  cannot  depict  a  sav- 
age so  clearly  as  a  civilized  man  can  do.  But  in  truth, 
the  painters  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  have  for  the  most  part 
represented  the  last  one,  nothing  more.  The  great  man, 
the  poet  and  thinker,  has  never  been  so  clearly  known  to 
himself,  that  the  crystal  light-holder  and  the  light  have 
become  one ;  much  less  then  have  other  men.  However 
easily  blooming  every  man  may  open  towards  the  sky,  he 
is  yet  drawn  down  by  a  root  into  the  dark,  fast  earth. 

§7. 
The  spirit  of  the  nation  and  of  the  age  decides,  and  is 
at  once  the  schoolmaster  and  the  school :  for  it  seizes  on 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.      9 

the  pupil  to  form  him  with  two  vigorous  hands  and  pow- 
ers ;  with  the  living  lesson  of  action,  and  with  its  unalter- 
able unity.  If — to  begin  with  unity  —  education  must 
be,  like  the  Testament,  a  continuous  endeavor  to  withdraw 
the  force  of  interrupting  mixtures,  then  nothing  builds  up 
so  strong  as  the  present,  which  ceases  not  for  a  moment, 
and  eternally  repeats  itself;  and  which,  with  joy  and  sor- 
row, with  towns  and  books,  with  friends  and  enemies, 
in  short,  with  thousand-handed  life,  presses  and  seizes  on 
us.  No  teacher  of  the  people  continues  so  uniformly  one 
with  himself  as  the  teaching  people.  Minds  molten  into 
masses  lose  something  of  their  free  movements :  which 
bodies,  for  instance,  that  of  the  world,  perhaps  that  of  the 
universe,  seem  to  gain  by  their  very  massiveness,  and, 
like  a  heavy  colossus,  to  move  all  the  more  easily  along 
the  old,  iron-covered  track.  For  however  much  mar- 
riages, old  age,  deaths  and  enmities,  are  in  the  individual 
case  subject  to  the  law  of  freedom,  yet  in  a  whole  nation, 
lists  of  births  and  deaths  can  be  made,  by  which  it  may 
be  shown  that  in  the  Canton  of  Berne  (according  to  Mad. 
de  Stael)  the  number  of  divorces,  as  in  Italy  that  of  mur- 
ders, is  the  same  from  year  to  year.  Must  not,  now,  the 
little  human  being  placed  on  such  an  eternally  and  ever 
similarly  acting  world,  be  borne  as  upon  a  flying  earth, 
where  the  only  directions  that  a  teacher  can  give  avail 
nothing,  because  he  has  first  unconsciously  received  his 
line  of  movement  upon  it  ?  Thence,  in  spite  of  all  re- 
formers and  informers,  nations,  like  meadows,  reach  ever 
a  similar  verdure ;  thence,  even  in  capital  cities,  where  all 
school-books  and  schoolmasters,  and  even  parents  of  every 
kind,  educate,  the  spirit  maintains  itself  unalterably  the 
same. 

Repetition  is  the  mother  not  only  of  study,  but  also  of 
.   1* 


lO  LEVANA. 

education.  Like  the  fresco-painter,  the  teacher  lays  col- 
ors on  the  wet  plaster  which  ever  fade  away,  and  which 
he  must  ever  renew  until  they  remain  and  brightly  shine. 
Who  then,  at  Naples  for  instance,  lays  the  colors  most 
frequently  on  the  spiritual  tablet  of  one  individual,  the 
one  tutor,  or  the  multitude  of  30,000  advocates,  30,000 
lazzaroni,  and  30,000  monks;  a  threefold  company  of 
fates,  or  ninefold  one  of  nine  murderers,  compared  with 
which  Vesuvius  is  a  quiet  man  who  suffers  himself  to  be 
entreated  by  Saint  Januarius  *  (although  not  in  January)  ? 
Certainly  one  might  say  that  also  in  families  there 
educates,  besides  the  popular  masses,  a  pedagogic  crowd 
of  people;  at  least,  for  instance,  aunts,  grandfathers, 
grandmothers,  father,  mother,  godparents,  friends  of  the 
family,  the  yearly  domestics,  and  at  the  end  of  all  the  in- 
structor beckons  with  his  forefinger,  so  that  —  could  this 
force  continue  as  long  as  it  would  gladly  be  maintained — 
a  child,  under  these  many  masters,  would  resemble,  much 
more  than  one  thinks,  an  Indian  slave,  who  wanders 
about  with  the  inburnt  stamps  of  his  various  masters. 
But  how  does  the  multitude  disappear  compared  with  the 
higher  one,  by  which  it  w^as  colored ;  just  as  all  the  burnt 
marks  of  the  slave  yet  cannot  overcome  the  hot  black 
coloring  of  the  sun,  but  receive  it  as  a  coat  of  arms  in  a 
sable  field  ? 

§8. 

,  The  second  mighty  power  by  which  the  spirit  of  the 
age  and  people  teaches  and  conquers  is  the  living  action. 
Not  the  cry,  says  a  Chinese  author,  but  the  rising,  of  a 
,  wild  duck  impels  the  flock  to  follow  him  in  upward  flight. 
One  war  fought  against  a  Xerxes  inflames  the  heart  quite 
differently,  more  purely  and  more  strongly,  than  the  pe- 
*  The  protecting  saint  of  the  Neapolitans  against  Vesuvius. 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.     II 

rusal  of  it  three  times  in  Cornelius,  Plutarch,  and  Herodo- 
tus :  for  this  last,  along  with  the  whole  teaching  of  school 
phrases,  is  merely  an  intellectual  imitation  in  cork  (a 
phelloplastic,  according  to  Bottiger's  retranslation  into  the 
Greek)  in  order  easily  to  represent  ancient  temples  and 
magnificent  buildings  in  light  cork  forms.  Yea,  the  mere 
ancestral  images  of  deeds  in  Plutarch's  Westminster  Ab- 
bey cast  the  seeds  of  the  divine  word  more  deeply  into 
the  heart  than  one  or  a  few  thousand  volumes  of  sermons 
full  of  true  pulpit  eloquence.  Heaven !  if  words  could 
be  compressed  to  deeds,  only  a  thousand  to  one,  could 
they  yet  arouse  upon  an  earth  in  which  pulpits,  profes- 
sors' chairs,  and  libraries  of  all  ages  snow  down  unceas- 
ingly their  most  pure  cold  exhortations,  one  single  passion 
to  hurl  forth  volcanic  fire  ?  Would  not  history  then  be 
surrounded  with  mere  snow  craters  and  icebergs  ?  Ah ! 
most  respected  teachers,  if  even  we,  with  our  great  col- 
lege libraries,  that  preach  to  us  for  tens  of  years,  have 
never  once  been  brought  so  far  as  to  become  holy  men 
for  a  month,  nay  for  a  week,  what  dare  we  expect  from 
the  few  volumes  of  words  which  we  let  fall  in  school- 
hours?  Or  what  more  should  the  parents  at  home  ex- 
pect ? 

The  pedagogic  powerlessness  of  words  is  unfortunately 
confessed  in  a  peculiar  manner,  which  is  daily  renewed 
in  each  of  us.  Namely,  every  individual  being  is  divided 
into  a  teacher  and  his  scholars  ;  or  is  split  up  into  tlm 
teacher's  chair  and  the  scholars'  form.  Should  you  now 
believe  that  this  perpetual  house-tutor  in  the  four  cham- 
bers of  the  brain,  —  who  daily  gives  private  lessons  to 
the  sharer  of  his  apartment,  philanthropist,  and  boarder, 
—  who  is  a  morning,  evening,  and  night  preacher,  —  who 
never  ceases  with  his  conversatorium  and  repetitorium,  — 


12  LEVANA. 

who  accompanies  the  pupil,  -whom  he  loves  as  himself 
and  conversely,  everywhere  with  notes  of  instruction  as 
tutor  on  his  travels,  in  idle  hours  and  wine-drinkings,  by 
seats  on  the  throne,  by  the  chair  of  instruction  and  else- 
where, —  who,  as  the  most  unlimited  head-master  to  be 
found  under  the  skull,  ever  sleeps  with  his  scholar,  as  a 
sergeant  with  a  recruit,  in  the  same  bed,  and  from  time 
to  time  reminds  him  of  much  when  a  man  has  forgotten 
himself,  —  in  short,  could  you  believe  that  this  so  ex- 
tremely rare  Mentor,  who  from  the  pineal-gland,  as  the 
lodging-place  of  the  high  light,  eternally  teaches  down- 
ward ;  nevertheless,  after  fifty  and  more  judgments  and 
years,  has  experienced  nothing  better  in  his  Telema- 
chus,  than  what  the  pure  Minerva  (the  well-known  and 
anonymous  Mentor  in  the  Telemachus),  with  all  her 
modesty,  in  the  greatest  head  of  the  world,  in  that  of 
Jupiter,  also  had  to  experience,  namely,  that  she  could 
not  spare  her  pupil  a  single  one  of  his  animal  transfor- 
mations ?  This,  indeed,  were  scarcely  to  be  believed,  if 
we  did  not  daily  see  the  most  lamentable  instances  of  it 
in  ourselves.  There  is,  for  example,  in  the  history  of  the 
learned  something  very  usual  and  very  pitiful :  —  that 
excellent  men  have  resolved  for  many  years  to  rise  earlier 
in  a  morning,  without  much  coming  of  it,  —  unless  they 
may  perhaps  break  through  the  habit  at  the  last  day. 

§9. 
Permit  us  to  return :  and  since  we  have  easily  asked 
whether  a  man  may  be  more  effectually  moved  by  a 
thousand  outward  foreign  words,  than  by  a  billion  of  his 
own  inward  ones,  let  us  not  be  very  much  astonished  if 
the  stream  of  words  which  is  given  to  the  youth,  in  order 
that  he  may  thereby  guide  and  bear  himself  up  in  the 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.     13 

ocean,  should  be  dissipated  by  the  winds  and  waves  on 
every  side.  But  give  us  leave  to  remark,  that  we  lay 
many  things  to  the  account  of  school-rooms,  that  is,  of 
words,  which  have  in  fact  had  their  sole  origin  on  the 
common  teaching-ground  of  action ;  just  as,  in  former 
times,  general  pestilences  were  ascribed  to  the  poisoning 
of  particular  wells  by  the  Jews.  The  school-house  of  the 
young  soul  does  not  merely  consist  of  lecture  and  lesson 
rooms,  but  also  of  the  school-ground,  the  sleeping-room, 
the  eating-room,  the  play-ground,  the  staircase,  and  of 
every  place.  Heaven  !  what  intermixture  of  other  influ- 
ences, always  either  to  the  advantage  or  prejudice  of 
education  !  The  physical  growth  of  the  pupil  nourishes 
and  draws  forth  a  mental  one  !  Nevertheless,  this  is 
ascribed  to  the  pedagogic  tan-bed ;  just  as  if  one  must 
not  necessarily  grow  cleverer  and  taller  at  the  same  time ! 
One  might  quite  as  properly  attribute  the  service  of  the 
muscles  to  the  leading-strings.  Parents  very  often  in 
their  own  children  regard  that  as  the  effect  of  educational 
care  and  attention  which  in  strangers  they  would  merely 
consider  the  consequence  of  human  growth.  There  are 
so  many  illusions  !  If  a  great  man  have  gone  through 
any  one  educational  establishment,  he  is  ever  after  ex- 
plained by  that :  either  he  did  not  resemble  it,  and  then 
it  is  held  to  have  been  a  moulding  counter-irritation ;  or 
he  did,  and  then  it  acted  as  an  incitement  to  life.  In  the 
same  way  one  might  regard  the  blue  librarj'^,  whose  bind- 
ing taught  the  librarian  Duval  his  first  lessons  in  arith- 
metic, as  an  arithmetical  book,  and  school  for  arithmetic. 
If  parents,  or  men  in  general,  in  all  their  education  seek 
nothing  else  than  to  make  their  physical  image  into  their 
more  perfect  mental  one,  and  consequently  to  varnish 
over  this  copy  with  the  departed  brightness  of  the  origi- 


14  LEVANA. 

nal,  then  must  they  readily  fall  into  the  mistake  of 
esteeming  an  inborn  resemblance  an  acquired  one,  and 
physical  fathers  spiritual  ones,  and  nature  freedom.  But 
in  this  and  the  former  consideration,  that  holds  true  of 
children  which  does  of  nations  :  there  were  found  in  the 
new  world  ten  customs  of  the  old,  —  six  Chinese  in  Peru, 
four  Hottentotish  in  Western  America,*  —  without  any 
other  nearer  descent  to  account  for  these  resemblances 
than  the  general  one  from  Adam,  or  humanity. 

§  10. 
"We  may,  excellent  fellow-workers,  especially  flatter 
ourselves  with  services  to  humanity,  when  the  position  is 
proved  true,  that  we  effect  little,  or  nothing,  by  education. 
As  in  the  mechanical  world  every  motion,  if  the  oppo- 
sition of  friction  were  removed,  would  be  unceasingly 
continued,  and  every  change  become  eternal;  so,  in  the 
spiritual  world,  if  the  pupil  less  bravely  opposed  and 
vanquished  the  teacher,  a  more  beggarly  life  would  be 
eternally  repeated  than  we  can  at  all  picture  to  ourselves. 
I  mean  this :  if  all  the  streets  and  times  of  this  poor 
earth  were  to  be  filled  with  dull,  stiff  images  from  the 
pedagogic  princely  mirrors,  that  is,  with  counterfeits  of 
school-men,  so  that  every  age  might  be  impressed  by  the 
other,  manikin  on  manikin  ;  what  else  is  wanted  for  this 
tedious  misery,  but  that  education  should  succeed  beyond 
our  expectations,  and  a  tutor  and  schoolmaster  allow  his 
head,  like  a  crowned  one,  to  pass  stamped  in  all  hands 
and  corners?  And  a  whole  bench  of  knights  might 
become  an  assembly  of  candidates  fit  for  the  tournament, 
because  they  had  been  previously  clean  and  well  copied 
after  the  quiet  burgher's  pattern  ? 

*  Zimmermann's  History  of  Man,  b.  3. 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.     15 

But  we  will  venture  to  hope  the  opposite  ;  the  school- 
master and  tutor  is  ever  afterwards  connected  with  the 
nobleman,  as  God  with  nature  ;  concerning  which  Sen- 
eca justly  writes,  Semel  Jussit,  semper  paret,  —  i.  e.  the 
tutor's  study  is  very  soon  closed,  and  "the  antechamber 
and  audience-hall  opened. 

In  order  not  to  fall  into  the  error  of  those  who  intro- 
duce the  bird  Phoenix,  and  the  man  in  the  moon  unwived, 
I  have  here  in  my  thoughts  girls  also,  on  whom,  as  on 
doves  and  canary-birds,  false  colors  are  painted  by  gov- 
ernesses, as  well  as  by  tutors,  which  the  first  rain  or 
moulting  removes.  But,  as  has  been  said,  every  woman 
becomes  in  time  something  peculiar ;  a  beautiful  Idioticon 
of  her  many  provinces  of  language. 

§11. 
Through  long  teaching,  to  which  no  advance  of  the 
pupil  is  sufficiently  proportioned,  schoolmasters  of  under- 
standing may  arrive  at  the  question  :  "  How  will  the  poor 
scholar  be  able  to  walk  in  the  right  path  without  our 
leading-strings,  since  even  with  them  he  runs  into  error  ?  " 
—  and  also  at  this  wish  :  "  God  !  that  we  could  but  wind 
him  up,  and  fix  him,  exactly  like  an  astronomical  hun- 
dred-yeared  chronometer,  so  that  he  might  show  the 
hours,  and  positions  of  the  planets  and  everything  quite 
accurately,  long  after  our  death  !  "  —  and  consequently  at 
this  opinion  :  "  that  they  were  in  fact  the  soul  of  his  inner 
man,  and  had  to  raise  his  every  limb,  or  were  at  least, 
his  supporting  mould,  in  which  he  ought  not  merely  to 
carry  his  broken  arm,  as  in  a  gentle  bandage,  but  also  his 
leg,  his  head,  and  his  entrails,  so  as  to  be  completely 
strengthened."  If  the  tutor  accompany  his  young  master 
to  the  university,  the  one  goes  into  much  good  society 


l6  LEVANA. 

without  the  other :  and  if  they  both  at  last  set  off  on 
their  travels,  the  young  gentleman  goes  into  much  of  a 
suspicious  nature,  and  the  tutor  ends  his  anxiety, — 
which  resembles  the  anxiety  of  a  mother,  as  to  how  the 
poor  naked  foetus  can  exist,  when  it  comes  into  this  cold 
blowing  world,  and  is  no  longer  nourished  by  her  blood. 

Truly  your  singing-bird  of  a  pupil  will  continue  to 
whistle  for  you  through  the  night ;  because,  by  a  night- 
light,  that  is,  by  an  education  out  of  season,  you  delude 
him  into  the  belief  of  an  artificial  daylight ;  but  when  he 
once  flies  into  the  open  air,  he  will  then  only  arrange  his 
notes  and  sound  them  at  the  general  break  of  day. 

If  we  place  ourselves  on  another  eminence,  to  contem- 
plate thence  the  directions,  fears,  and  demands  of  teachers, 
we  almost  feel  tempted  to  drive  them  down,  especially 
because  they,  the  educators,  assume  and  presume  so  much ; 
that  is,  they  do  not  take  and  set  before  them  the  great 
world-plan  as  their  school-plan,  nor  the  all-educator  as  an 
e3;ample  to  the  poor  hedge-schoolmaster  man,  —  but  do  so 
anxiously  endeavor,  with  their  narrow  views,  to  assist  the 
infinite  Pedagogiarch  (Prince  of  teachers),  —  who  per- 
mits sun  to  revolve  round  sun,  and  child  round  father,  and 
so  the  child's  and  father's  father  are  alike,  —  as  if  human- 
ity, neglected  for  thousands  of  years,  were  laid  before 
them,  hidden  nook  creators,  like  warm  wax,  on  which 
they  had  to  impress  their  own  individual  induration,  to 
produce  future  indurations  ;  so  that  they  might  as  re-cre- 
ators agreeably  surprise  the  creator  with  a  living  seal  and 
paste  cabinet  of  their  coats  of  arms  and  heads. 

A  long  period,  and  here  again  a  long  period. 

§12. 
None  of  all  my  hearers,  of  whom  I  am  the  nearest,  can 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF   EDUCATION.      17 

have  forgotten  that  at  the  commencement  I  asked  why  so 
much  at  present  in  Germany  is  written  about  education, 
and  grounded  upon  it,  as  I  also  myself  intend  to  lay  some 
printed  ideas  on  the  subject  before  the  public.  I  answer, 
for  this  reason  ;  because  by  cultivation  all  humanity  has 
become  a  speaking  machine,  and  the  flesh  a  word.  The 
more  education,  the  more  notions ;  the  less  action,  the  more 
speech  ;  man  is  becoming  a  man  by  profession,  as  there 
were  formerly  Christians  by  profession ;  and  the  ear  his 
sensorium  commune.  The  beggar,  for  instance,  passes  by 
the  great  citizen  unnoticed ;  the  one  has  fled  from  the 
other,  not  merely  in  deed,  but  beyond  that,  in  word  ;  just 
as  battles,  pestilences,  and  such  like,  pass  over  us  only  as 
gentle  sounds.  Therefore  is  poetry  so  beneficial  as  a 
counterbalance  to  civilization,  because  it  draws  an  artistic 
life  round  the  thin  shadows,  and  erects  on  the  battle-field 
of  mere  sensuous  views  its  own  glorious  visions.  But  as 
the  German  spends  no  time  so  willingly  as  a  time  for  con- 
sideration, —  to  the  most  important  step  he  made,  namely, 
that  into  life,  he  took  an  eternity  of  consideration,  —  he 
prefers  steady,  slow  writing,  to  quick  hither  and  thither 
roving  speech  ;  unlike  the  Southerns,  he  is  less  a  speech- 
loving  than  a  writing-loving  people,  as  his  registries  and 
book-shelves  prove.  "  A  word,  a  man,"  *  means  now 
"  black  on  white,  a  man."  Writing  and  fact,  or  clothing 
and  body,  are  now  as  distinct  from  one  another  as  shoe 
and  foot,  which,  as  a  measure,  mean  with  us  the  same 
thing.  It  all  depends  on  one  little  stroke,  whether  Christ 
is  God  or  not ;  namely,  on  the  well-known  passage, 
1  Tim.  iii.  16,  in  the  Alexandrine  copy,  where  a  little 
stroke  with  the  back  of  the  pen  changes  OC  into  GC 

*  A  common  proverbial  expression,  signifying  that  no  written  con- 
tract  is  necessary  when  a  man  has  given  his  word. —  Tr. 


l8  LEVANA. 

(Of 6s),  and  upon  an  "  Or  "  in  Carolina,  whether  a  man 
shall  be  hanged  or  not. 

But  now  if  the  inner  being  of  the  cultivated  man  is 
merely  composed,  like  some  drawings,  of  letters  and 
words,  then  enough  can  never  be  said  of  and  in  education, 
since  the  consciousness  of  having  separated  the  inner  life 
into  ideas,  consequently  into  words,  secures  the  certainty 
of  being  able  again  to  reconstruct  it  by  means  of  the 
separated  component  parts,  that  is,  by  means  of  words ; 
in  short,  to  educate  through  the  means  of  speech,  by  the 
pen  and  the  tongue.  "  Draw,"  said  Donatello  to  the 
sculptors,  "  and  you  will  be  able  to  do  the  rest."  "  Speak," 
say  we  to  teachers,  "  and  you  will  show  how  to  act." 

As  every  kind  of  existence  only  propagates  itself  by 
itself;  for  example,  deeds  only  by  deeds,  words  by  words, 
education  by  education  ;  we  will,  excellent  fellow-labor- 
ers, cheer  and  strengthen  ourselves  in  the  hope  that  our 
teaching  may  spiritually  reward  us  by  the  elevation  of 
our  pupils  into  teachers,  who  may  hereafter  speak  more 
extendedly  with  others  ;  and  that  our  Johanneura-Paulli- 
num  may  serve  as  an  educational  institution  for  many 
educational  institutions,  while  we  send  forth  from  our 
school-gates  matured  house-tutors,  school-keepers,  and  cate- 
chisers,  to  produce  their  equals  in  good  school-houses,  — 
not  Cyruses,  but  Cyropedias,  and  Cyropedagogiarchs. 

§  13. 

I  now  turn  to  the  most  worshipful  fathers  of  the  city, 
our  supporters  and  school-archs,  not  only  with  thanks,  but 
also  with  entreaties.  There  remains,  namely,  in  the  most 
unpractical  men  and  speakers  a  something  harsh  and 
real,  —  it  is  called,  harshly  enough,  stomach,  —  which, 
from  selfishness,  values  in  the  tongue  only  its  imports, 


PRESENT    INEFFICIENCY    OF    EDUCATION.     19 

not  its  exports.  Enough  ;  every  one  possesses  this  mem- 
ber ;  and  it  is  this  especially  that  makes  us  wish  our 
school  might  be  raised  into  a  finance  or  industrial  school 
for  all  those  who  received  their  incomes  from  it,  so  that 
every  one  who  as  scholar  subscribed  to  it,  may  gladly 
again  enter  it  in  order  to  be  paid  as  teacher.  Moreover 
our  school  book-shop,  less  truly  school-library,  and  our 
school-purse,  yea,  and  our  school  widow's  fund,  might  be 
well  supported ;  and  so  of  everything  else,  for  the  only 
school  sickness  which  teachers  have  is  hunger,  an  evil  for 
which  the  state  should  supply  domestic  means,  or  so  called 
housekeeper's  provision. 

But  since  all  of  us,  especially  as  educators  of  youth, 
wish  to  live  for  something  fairer  and  more  enduring  than 
our  dinner  of  black  soup,  for  which  we  must  first,  all  day 
long  distribute  whipping-soup,  I  venture,  unabashed,  to 
prefer  the  proud  request,  that  the  desk  from  which  the 
third  master,  and  music-teacher,  as  well  as  myself,  have 
to  propound  the  needful  instruction,  may  be  newly  colored, 
merely  like  a  book,  or  a  Prussian  post-house,  black  and 
white,  and  that  the  Lyceum  may  receive,  if  not  the  name 
gymnasium,  yet  the  epithet  royal,  and  that  we  may  all,  as 
far  as  is  possible,  be  addressed  by  the  title  of  professors. 
Perhaps  the  school  friendship,  which  has  hitherto  con- 
fined itself  to  the  scholars,  might  then  be  extended 
to  the  teachers.     Fiat  I  —  Dixi  ! 

§14. 

Scarcely  had  the  author  delivered  the  inaugural  dis- 
course he  had  before  composed,  than  so  much  of  a  resig- 
nation speech  was  found  in  it,  that  they  afforded  him 
a  fair  opportunity  to  deliver  this  last,  and  to  explain  him- 
self more  at  large,  by  removing  and  dismissing  him  a  few 


20  LEVANA. 

days  afterwards.  Thereby  he  was  placed  in  a  position  to 
take  leave  of  his  fellow-teachers  as  publicly  as  he  had 
received  his  dismissal,  and  at  the  same  time  to  choose  as 
text  for  his  short  farewell  discourse  —  the  educational 
chair  (which  he  mounted  for  the  second  and  last  time), 
and  to  impress  upon  them  its  importance. 


CHAPTER   III. 

IMPORTANCE   OP    EDUCATION. 

§15. 

MOST  honored  brothers  in  office !  In  laying  down 
my  short-held  office  with  a  certain  consoling  con- 
sciousness that  none  of  those  intrusted  to  my  charge  will 
ever  stand  forth  to  reproach  me  with  an  erroneous  plan 
of  teaching,  or  with  hours  of  instruction  gossiped  away,  I 
can  find  no  theme  for  a  farewell,  more  connected  with  the 
subject,  than  the  consideration  how  deeply  a  good  educa- 
tion penetrates  into  the  heart  of  the  age ;  and  I  choose 
this  the  more  readily,  because  it  will  give  me  an  oppor- 
tunity to  place  in  a  new  light  much  that  the  day  before 
yesterday  was  laid  down  by  my  predecessor  in  this  desk, 
the  deliverer  of  the  inaugural  discourse,  —  for  here  I  do 
not  venture  to  speak  of  myself  in  any  other  way  since 
my  dismissal. 

It  shall  only  be  proved  that  he  advanced  mere  soph- 
isms, which  originally,  according  to  Leibnitz,  signified 
only  exercises  in  wisdom. 

"  For  what  other  reason,"  he  asks,  "  do  men  now  write 


IMPORTANCE  OF  EDUCATION.       21 

SO  much  about  education,  than  because,"  he  answers, 
"  our  whole  existence  has  passed  into  words,  and  words  so 
easily,  by  means  of  tongues  and  ears,  into  the  soul."  But 
is  this,  pray,  anything  different  from  what  I  myself  main- 
tain ?     We  shall  see. 

§  16. 

No  former  age  or  people  is  to  be  compared  with  any 
since  the  invention  of  printing  ;  for  since  that  time  there 
have  been  no  more  isolated  states,  and  consequently  no 
isolated  influence  of  the  state  on  its  component  parts. 
Strangers  and  returned  travellers,  whom  Lycurgus  ex- 
cluded from  his  republic,  like  episodes  and  the  interven- 
tion of  gods  from  the  dramatic  unities,  now  traverse  every 
country  under  the  name  of  missals  and  waste  paper.  No 
one  is  any  longer  alone,  not  even  an  island  in  the  most 
distant  sea  ;  thence  comes  it  that  the  political  balance  of 
power  of  many  states,  collected  under  one  arm  of  the 
balance,  is  now  first  mooted.  Europe  is  an  interlaced, 
misgrown,  banyan  forest,  round  which  the  other  quarters 
of  the  world  creep,  like  parasite  plants,  and  nourish 
themselves  on  its  decayed  parts.  Books  form  a  universal 
republic,  a  union  of  nations,  or  a  society  of  Jesus,  in  a 
nobler  sense,  or  a  humane  society,  whereby  a  second  or 
duplicate  Europe  arises ;  which,  like  London,  lies  in  sev- 
eral counties  and  districts.  As  now,  on  the  one  side,  the 
book-pollen  flying  everywhere,  brings  the  disadvantage 
that  no  people  can  any  longer  produce  a  bed  of  flowers 
true  and  unspotted  with  foreign  colors ;  —  as  now  no  state 
can  be  any  longer  formed  purely,  slowly,  and  by  degrees 
from  itself,  but,  like  an  Indian  idol,  composed  of  different 
animals,  must  see  the  various  members  of  the  neighbor- 
ing states  mingled  with  its  growth;  —  so,  on  the  other 


22  LEVANA. 

side,  through  the  ecumenic  council  of  the  book-world,  the 
spirit  of  a  provincial  assembly  can  no  longer  slavishly 
enchain  its  people,  and  an  invisible  church  frees  it  from 
the  visible  one.  And  therefore  we  educate  now  with 
some  hope  for  the  age,  because  we  know  that  the  spoken 
word  of  the  German  teacher  is  re-echoed  by  the  printed 
page  ;  and  that  the  citizen  of  the  world,  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  universal  republic,  will  not  sink  into  the 
citizen  of  an  injurious  state,  all  the  more  because,  though 
books  may  be  dead  yet  glorified  men,  their  pupils  will 
ever  hold  themselves  as  their  living  relatives. 

That  the  age  writes  so  much  on  education,  shows  at 
once  its  absence  and  the  feeling  of  its  importance.  Only 
lost  things  are  cried  about  the  streets.  The  German 
state  itself  no  longer  educates  sufficiently ;  consequently 
the  teacher  should  do  it  in  the  nursery,  from  the  pulpit, 
and  from  the  desk.  The  forcing-houses  in  Rome  and 
Sparta  are  destroyed,  —  in  Sinai  and  in  the  Arabian 
desert  some  few  yet  stand,  —  the  old  circle,  that  the  state 
should  plan  and  direct  the  education,  and  this  again  act 
on  that,  has  been  very  much  rectified,  or  indeed  squared, 
by  the  art  of  printing ;  for  now  men,  elevated  above  all 
states,  educate  states  ;  dead  men,  for  instance,  like  Plato  ; 
just  as  in  the  deep  old  morning-world,  according  to  the 
saga,  angels  with  glories  wandered  about,  guided,  like 
children,  the  new  men  who  had  sprung  out  of  the  ruins, 
and,  having  ended  their  instruction,  vanished  into  heaven. 
The  earth,  according  to  Zach's  ingenious  idea,  has  been 
formed  from  congregated  moons ;  one  moon  striking  on 
the  American  side,  drove  the  deluge  over  the  old  world  ; 
the  sharp-pointed,  wildly-up-piled  Switzerland  is  nothing 
more  than  a  visible  moon,  that  once  tumbled  from  its 
pure  ether  down  to  the  earth,  —  and  so  there  is  in  intel- 


IMPORTANCE    OF    EDUCATION.  23 

lectual  Europe,  far  more  than  in  any  age  or  quarter  of 
the  world  not  addicted  to  printing,  a  congregation  of  soul- 
worlds,  or  of  world-souls,  sent  or  fallen  from  heaven. 
The  great  man  has  now  a  higher  throne,  and  his  crown 
shines  over  a  wider  plain;  for  he  works  not  only  by 
action,  but  also  by  writing,  —  not  only  by  his  word,  but 
also,  like  thunder,  by  an  echo.  So  one  mind  influences  its 
neighboring  minds,  and  through  them  the  masses ;  as 
many  little  ships  draw  a  large  one  into  harbor,  so  infe- 
rior minds  bring  the  great  one  to  shore,  that  it  may  be 
unladen. 

§17. 

My  predecessor,  however,  might  grant  or  add  much ; 
namely,  that  if  the  great  body  of  authors  have  gradually 
assumed  the  educational  position  once  held  by  quacks  and 
fortune-tellers,  the  great  advancing  mass  of  the  people, 
which  so  easily  overpowers,  in  its  vast  ocean,  the  early 
teaching  of  childhood,  has  itself  changed  and  increased. 
"  Libraries,  and  two  yearly  book-fairs  —  not  including 
the  one  of  reprints  at  Frankfort  —  surpass,  I  should  think, 
a  few  school-books  and  their  expounders,"  the  deliverer 
of  the  address  might,  and  probably  does,  say.  But  a 
principal  point  here  must  not  be  overlooked. 

It  is  indubitable  that  everything  impresses  man  either 
formingly  or  improvingly  ;  —  so  that,  I  think,  not  merely 
an  assembly  of  people  and  of  books,  and  great  electric 
effusions  in  his  heaven's  equator  discompose  him,  but  also 
that  damp  weather  unnerves  him, — hence  it  is  certain  that 
no  man  can  take  a  walk  without  bringing  home  an  influ- 
ence on  his  eternity ;  every  spur,  every  star  of  heaven 
and  of  knighthood,  every  beetle,  every  trip  or  touch  of  the 
hand,  as  certainly  engraves  itself  upon  us,  as  the  gentle 


24  LEV  AN  A. 

dew-drop,  or  the  hanging  of  a  mist,  affects  the  granite 
mountains.  But  just  as  certainly,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
this  assertion  necessary ;  that  the  strength  of  every 
impression  depends  on  our  condition  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  to-morrow."  For  the  human  being  assimilates  more 
spiritual  food,  the  less  he  has  hitherto  received ;  as  he 
never  grows  more  rapidly  and  disproportionately  to  the 
given  nourishment  than  as  foetus  :  but,  after  he  has 
reached  the  point  of  satiety,  he  rejects  so  much  that  it  is 
well  the  brief  youth  of  the  individual  is  compensated  by 
the  eternal  youth  of  humanity,  whose  point  of  satiety  is 
marked  on  a  scale  which  takes  centuries  and  nations  for 
the  fractions  of  its  lines. 

On  this  account  education  is  always  counselled  to  do 
as  much  as  possible  during  the  first  year  of  life  ;  for  it  can 
then  effect  more  with  half  the  power  than  it  can  in  the 
eighth  with  double,  when  the  sense  of  freedom  is  aroused, 
and  all  the  conditions  of  being  indefinitely  multiplied. 
As  farmers  believe  it  most  advantageous  to  sow  in  mist, 
so  the  first  seeds  of  education  should  fall  in  the  first  and 
thickest  mist  of  life. 

In  the  first  place  have  regard  to  morality  !  The  inner 
man  is,  like  the  negro,  born  white,  and  only  colored  black 
by  life.  If  in  mature  years  great  examples  of  moral 
worth  pass  by  without  influencing  our  course  of  life  more 
than  a  flying  comet  that  of  the  earth,  yet  in  the  deep 
heart  of  childhood  the  first  inner  or  outer  object  of  love, 
injustice,  &c.,  throws  a  shadow  or  a  light  immeasurably 
far  along  its  years  ;  and  as,  according  to  the  elder  theolo- 
gians, we  only  inherited  Adam's  first  sin,  not  his  other 
sins,  since  in  one  fall  we  copied  every  fall ;  so  the  first 
fall  and  the  first  flight  influence  us  our  whole  life  long. 
For  in  this  early  moment  the  Eternal  works  the  second 


IMPOKTANCE    OF    EDUCATION.  25 

miracle :  the  gift  of  life  was  the  first.  It  is  then  that  the 
god-man  is  conceived  and  born  of  human  nature ;  that 
self-consciousness,  whereby  a  responsible  being  first  ap- 
pears, may  be  boldly  called  a  conscience  and  a  god,  —  and 
unblessed  is  the  hour  in  which  this  growing  human  being 
finds  no  unspotted  conception,  but  in  the  moment  of  birth 
the  Saviour  and  his  Judas  meet.  Too  little  attention  has 
been  paid  to  this  one  invaluable  moment,  its  environments 
and  its  fruits.  There  are  men  who  can  remember  far 
back  to  this  bounding  hour  of  existence,  in  which  their 
self-consciousness  suddenly  burst  through  the  clouds  Hke 
a  sun,  and  wonderfully  revealed  a  beaming  universe. 
Life,  especially  moral  life,  has  a  flight,  then  a  leap,  then  a 
step,  then  a  halt ;  each  year  renders  a  man  less  easy  to 
convert,  and  a  missionary  can  effect  less  on  a  wicked 
sexagenarian  than  an  auto-da-fe. 

§18. 

What  is  true  of  the  heart  of  the  inner  man  is  true  also 
of  his  eye.  If  the  former,  like  an  ancient  Christian 
church,  must  be  turned  towards  the  morning  of  child- 
hood ;  the  latter,  like  a  Grecian  temple,  receives  its 
greatest  light  from  the  entrance  and  from  above.  For, 
in  regard  to  intellectual  education,  the  child  walks  hand 
in  hand  with  a  nature  which  never  returns ;  this  nature 
is  hitherto  a  wintry  desert  full  of  spring  buds  :  wherever 
a  sunbeam  strikes  it  (for  all  teaching  is  warming  into  life 
rather  than  sowing),  there  the  green  leaves  burst  forth,  and 
the  whole  child's  life  consists  of  warm  creation  days. 

Two  forces  are  at  work :  first,  childlike  trust,  that  im- 
bibing power  without  which  there  could  be  no  education 
and  no  language,  but  the  child  would  resemble  a  bird 
taken  too  late  from  the  nest,  which  must  starve  because  it 

2 


26  LEVANA. 

will  not  open  its  bill  to  the  hand  which  brings  it  food. 
But  this  trust  shows  itself  only  in  the  minority,  and  sleeps 
in  the  mass  of  men  and  years.  The  second  power  is  ex- 
citabiUty.  As  in  the  physical,  so  in  the  spiritual  child,  it 
exists  in  the  highest  degree  in  the  physical  and  spiritual 
morning  of  life,  and  decreases  with  age,  until  at  last  noth- 
ing in  the  empty  world  excites  the  worn-out  man  except 
the  future.  Then  the  whole  universe  may  labor  at,  and 
press  its  marks  upon  the  man,  but  on  the  hardened  matter 
only  weak  impressions  remain.  The  spirit  of  his  age  and 
nation  may  work  unceasingly  on  the  child;  at  first  his 
only  teachers  are  the  age  and  nation.  Moravians,  Qua- 
kers, and  especially  Jews,  give  an  influence  to  education 
which  predominates  over  the  surrounding  dissimilar  ages 
and  people :  and  although  even  they  are  influenced  by 
the  spirit  of  the  age  and  of  the  multitude,  yet  it  impresses 
them  much  more  slightly  than  the  masses  who  are  differ- 
ently educated.  And  however  the  spirit  of  the  age  may 
move  and  turn  the  heart,  that  little  world,  yet,  like  all 
balls  revolvmg  on  themselves,  it  retains  two  innate  im- 
movable poles,  —  the  good  and  the  bad. 

§19. 
Moreover,  the  whole  mass  of  people  does  not,  as  my 
predecessor  seems  to  assert,  rush  on  the  individual  human 
being.  Only  some  few  in  later,  as  in  early  life  affect  the 
formation  of  our  characters ;  the  multitude  passes  by  like 
a  distant  army.  One  friend,  one  teacher,  one  beloved, 
one  club,  one  dining-table,  one  work-table,  one  house,  are, 
in  our  age,  the  nation  and  national  spirit  influencing  the 
individual,  while  the  rest  of  the  crowd  passes  him  without 
leaving  a  trace  behind.  But  when  do  individuals  affect 
us  so  powerfully  as  in  childhood  ?  or  when  so  long  —  for 


IMPORTANCE    OF    EDUCATION.  27 

in  education,  as  in  law,*  long  means  ten  years,  —  as  in 
the  first  decade  ?  The  waves  of  the  ocean,  besides,  be- 
fore reaching  the  child,  break,  against  four  walls,  which 
encompass  the  water  of  his  education  or  crystallization : 
father,  mother,  brothers  and  sisters,  and  a  few  extra  peo- 
ple, are  his  forming  world  and  mould.  But  all  this  de- 
ducted, we  must  remember  in  education  that  its  power, 
like  that  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  which  must  not  be  meas- 
ured by  individuals,  but  by  the  concentrated  mass  or  ma- 
jority, —  must  be  judged,  not  by  the  present,  but  by  the 
future :  a  nation  or  century,  educated  by  the  same  method, 
presses  down  the  balance  quite  differently  from  a  casual 
individual.  But  we,  as  ever,  desire  that  fate,  or  the  Time 
Spirit,  should  answer  our  inquiries  by  return  of  post 

§20. 
I  have  in  this  manner,  at  least  I  hope  so,  laid  my  own 
opinion,  as  well  as  his,  before  my  opponent  and  predeces- 
sor with  a  respect  which  is  not  so  common  among  the 
learned  body,  as  many  an  opponent  of  an  opponent  be- 
lieves. For  the  Httle  that  he  adds  about  the  absorption 
of  the  individual  in  the  mass  merits  not  contradiction,  but 
affirmation.  The  uniformity  of  the  masses  permits  many 
irregularities  in  the  individual;  and  although  the  tables 
of  mortality  are  correct,  no  one  hopes  and  fears  only  by 
them.  On  the  globe  itself  mountains  disappear,  and  from 
these  at  a  distance,  the  stony  path ;  but  he  who  travels  it 
sees  it  clearly  enough.  And  when  the  dear  good  man, 
along  with  his  complaints  of  the  ineffectiveness  of  good 
education,  gives  way  to  complaints  of  the  influence  of 
bad  education,  he  then  clearly  proves  by  a  capability  to 
be  Hi-educated,  a  capability  to  be  well-educated ;  and  so 
*  Longmu  tempos  est  decern  annorom,  Homm:  prompt. 


28 


LEVANA. 


education  is  to  be  reproached  with  no  want,  but  the  want 
of  correct  tables  of  the  perturbations  of  a  httle  wandering 
star,  caused  by  the  revolutions  of  other  planets ;  and  will 
we  not  readily  concede  this  ? 

And  now,  worthy  schoolarchy,  I  should  wish  to  know 
what  further  I  have  to  say  from  this  honorable  place  ? 


SECOND   FRAGMENT, 

Chap.  I.  Spirit  and  Principle  of  Education,  §§  21-24.  —  Chap.  II. 
The  Individuality  of  the  Ideal  Man,  ^§  25-30.  — Chap.  III.  On 
the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  §§  31-35. —  Chap.  IV.  Religious  Educa- 
tion, §^  36-38. 

CHAPTER   I. 

SPIRIT    AND    PRINCIPLE    OF    EDUCATION. 


§21. 
HE  end  desired  must  be  known  before  the  way. 
All  means  or  arts  of  education  will  be,  in  the 
first  instance,  determined  by  the  ideal  or  ar- 
chetype we  entertain  of  it.  But  there  floats 
before  common  parents,  instead  of  one  archetype,  a  whole 
picture  cabinet  of  ideals,  which  they  impart  bit  by  bit, 
and  tattoo  into  their  children.  If  the  secret  variances 
of  a  large  class  of  ordinary  fathers  were  brought  to 
light,  and  laid  down  as  a  plan  of  studies,  and  reading 
catalogue  for  a  moral  education,  they  would  run  some- 
what after  this  fashion :  —  In  the  first  hour  pure  mo- 
rality must  be  read  to  the  child,  either  by  myself,  or  the 
tutor ;  in  the  second,  mixed  morality,  or  that  which  may 
be  applied  to  one's  own  advantage ;  in  the  third,  "  Do  you 
not  see  that  your  father  does  so  and  so  ?  "  in  the  fourth, 
"  You  are  Httle,  and  this  is  only  fit  for  grown-up  people  " ; 
in  the  fifth,  "  The  chief  matter  is  that  you  should  succeed 


30  LEVANA. 

in  the  world,  and  become  something  in  the  state  " ;  in  the 
sixth,  "  Not  the  temporary,  but  the  eternal,  determines  the 
worth  of  a  man  " ;  in  the  seventh,  "  Therefore  rather  suffer 
injustice,  and  be  kind  " ;  in  the  eighth,  "  but  defend  your- 
self bravely  if  any  one  attack  you  " ;  in  the  ninth,  "  Do  not 
make  such  a  noise,  dear  child " ;  in  the  tenth,  "  A  boy 
must  not  sit  so  quiet " ;  in  the  eleventh,  "  You  must  obey 
your  parents  better  "  ;  in  the  twelfth,  "  and  educate  your- 
self." So  by  the  hourly  change  of  his  principles  the 
father  conceals  their  untenableness  and  one-sidedness. 
As  for  his  wife,  she  is  neither  like  him,  nor  yet  Hke  that 
harlequin  who  came  on  to  the  stage  with  a  bundle  of  pa- 
pers under  each  arm,  and  answered  to  the  inquiry  what 
he  had  under  his  right  arm,  "  orders,"  and  to  what  he  had 
under  his  left,  "counter-orders";  but  the  mother  might 
be  much  better  compared  to  a  giant  Briareus,  who  had  a 
hundred  arms,  and  a  bundle  of  papers  under  each. 

This  government  of  the  demigods,  so  frequently  and 
so  suddenly  changed,  proves  clearly  not  only  the  absence, 
but  also  the  necessity  and  the  right  of  a  superior  god :  for 
in  the  generality  of  souls  the  ideal,  without  which  men 
would  sink  down  into  four-footed  beasts,  reveals  itself 
rather  by  inner  discord  than  unison,  rather  by  judgments 
on  others  than  on  itself.  But  with  children,  the  result 
of  this  may  be,  and  often  has  been,  various  and  half-col- 
ored pupils,  whom  (unless  some  rare  peculiarity  makes 
them  hard  and  uninjurable)  the  spirit  of  the  age,  or  the 
accident  of  necessity  and  pleasure,  can  easily  break  with 
its  wheel,  or  even  twine  round  it.  The  majority  of  edu- 
cated men  are,  therefore,  at  present  an  illumination  which 
burns  off  by  fits  and  starts  in  the  rain,  shining  with  inter- 
rupted forms,  and  depicting  broken  characters. 

But  the  bad  and  impure  spirits  of  educational  systems 


SPIRIT    AND    PRINCIPLE    OF    EDUCATION.      31 

are  yet  to  be  reduced  into  other  divisions.  Many  parents 
educate  their  children  only  for  themselves,  —  that  is,  to 
be  pretty  blocks,  or  soul-alarums,  which  are  not  set  to 
move  or  sound  when  stillness  is  required.  The  child  has 
merely  to  be  that  on  which  the  teacher  can  sleep  most 
softly  or  drum  most  loudly ;  who,  having  something  else 
to  do  and  to  enjoy,  wishes  to  be  spared  the  trouble  of 
education,  duly  but  most  unreasonably  expecting  its  fruits. 
Hence  these  dull  sluggards  are  so  often  angry  because 
the  child  is  not  at  once  cleverer,  more  consistent,  and 
gentler  than  themselves.  Even  zealous  children's  friends, 
like  statesmen,  often  resemble  inflammable  air,  which,  it 
is  true,  gives  light  itself,  but  in  so  doing  extinguishes 
every  other :  at  least  a  child  must  often  be  to  them,  what 
a  favorite  assistant  must  be  to  a  minister,  sometimes  only 
the  hand  which  copies,  sometimes  a  head  which  can  work 
by  itself. 

Related  to  those  teachers  who  wished  to  be  machine- 
makers  are  the  educators  for  appearances  and  political 
usefulness.  Their  maxims,  thoroughly  carried  out,  would 
only  produce  pupils,  or  rather  sucklings,  passively  obedi- 
ent, boneless,  well-trained,  patient  of  all  things,  —  the 
thick,  hard,  human  kernel  would  give  place  to  the  soft, 
sweet  fruit-pulp,  —  and  the  child's  clod  of  earth,  into 
which  growing  life  should  breathe  a  divine  spirit,  would 
be  kept  down  and  manured  as  though  it  were  but  a  corn- 
field, —  the  edifice  of  the  state  would  be  inhabited  by 
mere  spinning-machines,  calculating-machines,  printing 
and  pumping  apparatus,  oil-mills,  and  models  for  mills, 
pumps,  and  spinning-machines,  &c.  Instead  of  every 
child,  born  without  past  and  without  future,  beginning  in 
the  year  one,  and  bringing  with  him  a  first  new-year,  the 
state,  forsooth,  must  step  into  and  usurp  the  place  of  a 


32  LEVANA. 

remote  posterity,  which  alone  could  make  him  spiritually, 
as  well  as  physically,  young  again,  and  substitute  for  him 
a  system  of  teaching  which  only  stops  his  wheels  and 
surrounds  them  like  hardened  ice. 

Nevertheless  the  man  comes  before  the  citizen,  and 
our  future,  beyond  the  world  as  well  as  in  our  own  minds, 
is  greater  than  both :  how  then  have  parents,  who  in  the 
child  clothe  and  bind  up  the  man  into  a  servant,  —  for 
instance,  into  custom-house  officers,  kitchen-purveyors, 
jurists,  &c.,  —  obtained  the  right  to  multiply  themselves 
otherwise  than  physically,  instead  of  begetting  spiritual 
embryos  ?  Can  care  of  the  body  impart  a  right  of  spirit- 
ual starvation,  or  of  good-living,  such  as  the  Devil  would 
prescribe  a  soul,  since  nobody  can  outbalance,  nay,  not 
even  balance,  a  soul  ?  The  ancient  German  and  Spartan 
custom  of  killing  weak-bodied  children  is  not  much  cru- 
eller than  that  of  propagating  weak-minded  ones. 

§22. 

Usefulness  to  others  is  only  separated  from  usefulness 
•  to  one's  self,  as  dishonesty  is  from  uncharitableness  :  both 
are  united  in  self-love.  Hedgerows  and  Hercules-pillars, 
however  perfect,  are  blamable  as  soon  as  they  diminish 
the  free  world  of  a  future  man.  If  Mengs,  by  slavery 
of  body  and  soul,  made  his  son,  Raphael  Mengs,  into  a 
painter,  —  according  to  Winkelmann,  the  Grecian  states 
only  reached  art  through  and  for  freedom,  —  he  did  but 
adopt  the  old  Egyptian  custom,  that  the  son.  must  follow 
the  trade  of  his  father,  only  in  its  higher  branches. 

Much  of  this  holds  good  with  regard  to  domestic 
orphan-house  chaplains,  who  transform  the  whole  chil- 
dren's training  into  a  Church-training  and  Bible-institution, 
and  make  free,  happy  children  into  bowed-down  cloister 


SPIRIT    AND    PRINCIPLE    OF    EDUCATION.      33 

novices.  For  the  human  being  is  not  formed  to  grow 
altogether  upwards,  like  plants  and  deer's  horns  ;  nor  yet 
altogether  downwards,  like  feathers  and  teeth ;  but,  hke 
muscles,  at  both  ends  at  once:  so  that  Bacon's  double 
motto  for  kings,  "  Remember  that  thou  art  a  man,  remem- 
ber that  thou  art  a  god,  or  vice-god,"  may  serve  also  for 
children  ! 

Education  can  neither  entirely  consist  of  mere  unfold- 
ing in  general,  or,  as  it  is  now  better  called,  excitement, 

—  for  every  continued  existence  unfolds,  and  every  bad 
education  excites,  just  as  oxygen  positively  irritates,  — 
nor  in  the  unfolding  of  all  the  powers,  because  we  can 
never  act  upon  the  whole  amount  of  them  at  once  ;  as 
little  as  in  the  body  susceptibility  and  spontaneity,  or  the 
muscular  and  nervous  system,  can  be  strengthened  at  the 
same  time. 

§23. 

A  purely  negative  education,  such  as  that  of  Rousseau 
only  seems  to  be,  would  at  once  contradict  itself  and 
reality,  as  much  as  an  organic  living  body  full  of  powers 
of  growth  without  means  of  excitement :  even  the  few 
wild  children  who  have  been  captured  received  a  positive 
education  from  the  raging  and  flying  animals  around 
them.  A  child's  coffin  only  can  represent  a  negative 
hedge-school,  prince's  school,  and  school-door.  The  pure- 
ly natural  man  —  whom  Rousseau  sometimes,  indeed 
very  often,  confounds  with  the  ideal  man,  because  both 
are  equally  piwe  and  distinct  from  the  mere  worldly  man 

—  grows  entirely  by  excitement.  Rousseau,  in  the  first 
place,  prefers  arousing  and  influencing  the  child  by  things 
rather  than  by  men,  by  impressions  rather  than  by  dis- 
courses ;  and,  in  the  second,  recommends  a  more  healthy 
and  useful  series  of  excitements,  whilst  his  predecessors 

2*  0 


34  ,  LEVANA. 

in  teaching  had  hastened  to  use  upon  the  susceptible 
nature  of  children  the  most  powerful  excitements,  such 
as  God,  Hell,  and  the  Rod !  Only  give  the  souls  of 
children  free  passage  from  the  limbus  patrum  et  infantum, 
and  Nature,  he  seems  to  think,  will  unfold  herself.  This, 
indeed,  she  does  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  but  only 
in  ages,  countries,  and  souls  which  possess  a  marked 
individuality. 

§24. 

Perhaps  we  may  find  the  centre  and  focus  of  these 
crossing  lines  and  beams  from  this  point  of  view  :  —  If  a 
modem  Greek,  without  any  knowledge  of  the  mighty  past, 
were  depicting  the  present  condition  of  his  enslaved  race, 
he  would  find  it  approaching  the  highest  step  of  civiliza- 
tion, morality,  and  other  excellences,  until  a  magic  stroke 
revealed  to  his  astonished  eye  Greece  in  the  Persian 
war,  or  Athens  in  its  glory,  or  fruitful  Sparta,  like  an 
empire  of  the  dead,  like  Elysian  fields.  What  a  differ- 
ence in  the  same  nation,  vast  as  that  between  gods  and 
men !  Nevertheless,  those  gods  are  not  genii,  nor  in  any 
way  exceptions,  but  a  people,  consequently  the  majority 
and  average  of  talents.  When  in  history  we  look  round 
on  the  heights  and  mountain  ranges  where  glorified 
nations  dwell,  and  then  down  into  the  abysses  where 
others  lie  enchained,  we  say  to  ourselves,  The  heights 
that  a  multitude  has  reached  thou  also  canst  reach,  if 
thou  canst  not  descend  into  the  depths.  The  spiritual 
existence  that  a  nation,  a  majority  of  2l\^  people,  has 
embodied  and  showed  forth  in  glory  must  dwell  and 
breathe  in  every  individual,  else  could  he  not  recognize 
in  it  a  kindred  being. 

And  so,  indeed,  it  is.  Every  one  of  us  has  within  him 
an  ideal  man,  which  he  strives,  from  his  youth  upwards, 


SPIRIT    AND    PRINCIPLE    OF    EDUCATION.      35 

to  cherish  or  to  subdue.  This  holy  soul-spirit  every  one 
beholds  most  clearly  in  the  blooming  time  of  aU  his  pow- 
ers, —  in  the  season  of  youth.  If  only  every  one  were 
distinctly  conscious  of  what  he  once  wished  to  become,  of 
how  different  and  much  nobler  a  path  and  goal  his  open- 
ing eye,  compared  with  his  fading  one,  beheld !  For  so 
soon  as  we  believe  in  any  contemporaneous  growth  of  the 
physical  and  spiritual  man,  we  must  also  let  the  blooming 
season  of  both  occur  simultaneously.  Consequently,  his 
own  ideal  being  will  appear  most  clearly  to  the  man 
(though  it  be  only  in  vague  desires  and  dreams)  in  the 
full  bloom  of  youth.  And  does  not  this  show  itself  in 
the  meanest  soul,  which,  though  sunk  during  its  pilgrim- 
age through  sensual  and  covetous  affections,  yet  once 
attained  a  higher  hope,  and  stood  within  the  gates  of 
heaven  ?  At  a  later  period,  in  the  multitude,  the  ideal 
being  fades  day  by  day,  and  the  man  becomes,  sinking 
and  overpowered,  the  mere  present,  a  creature  of  neces- 
sity and  neighborhood.  But  the  universal  complaint, 
"  What  might  I  not  have  become  !  "  confesses  the  present 
existence,  or  the  past  existence,  of  an  older  Adam  in 
paradise,  along  with  and  before  the  old  Adam. 

But  the  ideal  man  comes  upon  the  earth  as  an  anthro- 
pohthe  (a  petrified  man)  :  to  break  this  stony  covering 
away  from  so  many  limbs,  that  the  rest  can  liberate  them- 
selves, —  this  is,  or  should  be,  education. 

The  same  normal  being  who,  in  every  noble  soul,  re- 
mains as  house-tutor,  and  silently  teaches,  should  be 
outwardly  manifested  in  the  child,  and  make  itself  inde- 
pendent, free,  and  strong.  But  first  of  all  we  must 
discover  what  it  is.  The  ideal  man  of  F^nelon,  —  so  full 
of  love  and  full  of  strength,  —  the  ideal  man  of  Cato  the 
younger,  —  so  full  of  strength  and  full  of  love,  —  could 


36  LEVANA. 

never  exchange  or  metamorphose  themselves  into  each 
other  without  spiritual  suicide.  Consequently,  education 
has  in 


CHAPTER   II. 

TO    DISCOVER    AND    TO    APPRECIATE    THE    INDIVIDUALITY    OF 
THE    IDEAL    MAN. 

§25. 

LET  a  needful  breathing-space  be  granted  here  !  In 
most  languages,  like  a  symbol,  the  adjective  and 
verb  "  good  "  and  "  be  "  are  irregular.  Physical  power 
expresses  its  superfluity  in  the  variety  of  genera ;  hence 
the  temperate  zone  maintains  only  130  distinct  quadru- 
peds, but  the  torrid  220,  The  higher  kinds  of  life  sepa- 
rate, according  to  Zimmermann,  into  more  species  ;  thus, 
beyond  the  five  hundred  species  of  the  mineral  kingdom, 
lies  the  animal  world  with  seven  million.  It  is  so  with 
minds.  Instead  of  the  uniformity  of  savage  nations  in 
diflferent  ages  and  countries,  for  instance,  of  the  American 
Indians  and  the  ancient  Germans,  is  seen  the  many- 
branched,  varied  forms  of  civilized  people  in  the  same 
climate  and  period :  just  as  the  art  of  gardening  multi- 
plies sorts  of  flowers  in  different  colors,  or  time  separates 
a  long  strip  of  land  in  the  ocean  into  islands.  In  so  far 
a  meaning  may  be  attached  to  the  saying  of  the  school- 
men, that  every  angel  is  its  own  species. 

§26. 
Every   educator,   even   the   dullest,   admits   this,  and 
imprints  on   his  pupils  this  reverence  for  peculiarities, 
that  is,  for  his  own ;  at  the  sai^e  time  he  labors  industri- 


INDIVIDUALITY    OF    THE    IDEAL    MAN.       37 

ously  to  secure  this  point,  —  that  each  be  nothing  else 
than  his  own  step-son  or  bastard  self.  He  allows  himself 
as  much  individuality  as  is  necessary  to  eradicate  that  of 
others,  and  plant  his  own  in  its  stead.  If,  in  general, 
every  man  is  secretly  his  own  copying-machine,  which  he 
applies  to  others,  and  if  he  willingly  draws  all  into  ghostly 
and  spiritual  relationship  with  himself  as  soul's  cousins,  — 
as,  for  instance.  Homer  gladly  converted  the  four  quarters 
of  the  world  into  Homerides  and  Homerists,  and  Luther 
into  Lutherans,  —  much  more  will  the  teacher  strive  in 
the  defenceless,  unformed  souls  of  children  to  impress 
and  reproduce  himself,  and  the  father  of  the  body  en- 
deavor to  be  also  the  father  of  the  spirit.  God  grant 
it  may  seldom  succeed !  And  most  fortunately  it  does 
not  prosper  !  It  is  only  mediocrity  which  supplants  that 
of  others  by  its  own  ;  that  is,  one  imperceptible  individu- 
ality by  another  equally  imperceptible  :  hence  the  multi- 
tude of  imitators.  From  a  wood-cut  some  thousand 
impressions  may  easily  be  taken  ;  but  from  a  copper-plate 
only  a  tithe  of  that  number. 

It  were  indeed  too  pitiable  for  Europe  if  it  were  alto- 
gether sown  with  Tituses,  as  every  Titus  secretly  wishes, 
or  with  Semproniuses,  as  the  Semproniuses  desire !  What 
a  thick,  dead  sea  would  be  floating  along  from  the  usuri- 
ously-increasing  resemblance  of  teachers  and  pupils ! 

§27. 

As  every  teacher,  even  the  rigidest,  admits  that  he 
highly  values  two  strongly  marked  individualities,  — 
namely,  that  before  the  deluge  which  formed  his  own, 
and  that  own  itself,  —  and  regards  them  as  the  two 
mountain  ranges  which  give  birth  to  the  streams  below 
and  the  vales  of  Tempe ;  and  as,  moreover,  every  self- 


38  LEVANA. 

taught  man  maintains  that  everything  remarkable  in  the 
world  has  been  created  by  adding  and  subtracting,  but 
not  by  transplanting,  individualities,  some  other  illusion 
than  that  of  mere  selfishness  must  be  at  the  foundation 
of  this  disregard  of  the  peculiarities  of  others. 

§28. 
It  is,  in  truth,  the  excusable  error  that  confuses  the 
ideal  with  ideals ;  and  which,  had  it  lived  during  the 
week  of  creation,  would  have  created  all  angels,  all  Eves, 
or  all  Adams.  But  although  there  is  only  one  Spirit  of 
Poetry,  there  are  many  different  forms  in  which  it  can 
incorporate  itself,  —  comedies,  tragedies,  odes,  and  the 
thin  wasp's  body  of  the  epigram ;  so  the  same  moral 
genius  may  become  flesh,  —  here  as  Socrates,  there  as 
Luther,  here  as  Phocion,  there  as  John.  As  no  finite 
can  truly  reflect  the  infinite  ideal,  but  only  narrowly 
mirror  it  back  in  parts,  such  parts  must  necessarily  be 
infinitely  various ;  neither  the  dew-drop  nor  the  mirror 
nor  the  ocean  reflects  the  sun  in  all  its  greatness,  but 
they  each  represent  it  round  and  bright. 

§29. 

/ —  God  excepted,  who  is  at  once  the  great  original  / 
and  Thou  —  is  the  noblest  as  well  as  the  most  incompre- 
hensible thing  which  language  expresses  or  which  we 
contemplate.  It  is  there  at  once,  like  the  whole  world  of 
truth  and  conscience,  which,  without  I^  is  nothing.  We 
must  ascribe  the  same  thing  to  God  as  to  unconscious 
matter  when  we  think  of  the  being  of  the  one,  the  exist- 
ence of  the  other.  A  second  /  is,  in  other  respects,  even 
more  inconceivable  to  us  than  a  first 

Every  /  is  a  personal  existence,  consequently  a  spirit- 
ual individuality,  —  for  a  bodily  one  is  so  extended  that 


INDIVIDUALITY    OF    THE    IDEAL    MAN.       39 

a  portion  of  the  sky,  earth,  city,  must  belong  to  it  as  a 
body ;  —  this  personal  existence  does  not  consist  in 
Fichte's  theory  of  rendering  the  /  objectively  subjective, 
that  is,  in  the  change  of  the  reflection  of  what  was  first 
mirrored,  and  which  everywhere  returning  cuts  off  all 
number  and  time,  so  that  nothing  is  explained  by  it,  no 
reflection  by  its  counter-reflection.  Further,  it  does  not 
consist  in  an  accidental  weighing  backwards  and  forwards 
of  single  powers ;  for,  first,  to  every  embodied  army 
a  governing  and  controlling  master-spirit  is  indispensa- 
ble ;  and,  secondly,  all  distinct  forces  in  organic  con- 
nection rise  and  fall  with  the  weather-glass,  age,  &c., 
alongside  the  unchanging  individuality.     . 

But  it  is  an  inner  sense  of  all  senses ;  as  feeling  is  the 
sense  common  to  the  four  external  senses.  It  is  that  in 
others  on  which  our  reliance,  friendship,  or  enmity  rests, 
and  is  either  an  enduring  inaptitude,  or  a  capacity  for  the 
arts  of  poetry  and  thought  As  the  same  incomprehen- 
sible organic  unity,  subjecting  to  itself  disjointed  matter, 
governs  and  acts  differently  in  plants,  in  animals,  and  in 
their  every  variety,  and  multiplies  itself  in  organic  per- 
sonal existence,  so  also  does  the  higher  spiritual  unity. 
The  theological  question  of  the  schools,  whether  the  God- 
man  might  not  have  appeared  as  a  woman,  a  brute  ani- 
mal, or  a  gourd,  is  symbolically  affirmed  by  the  infinite 
variety  of  individual  existences  in  which  the  Divine 
Being  manifests  himself.  It  is  that  which  unites  all 
aesthetical,  moral,  and  intellectual  powers  into  one  soul, 
and,  like  the  material  of  light,  itself  invisible,  gives  and 
determines  the  many-colored  visible  universe,  whereby 
first  that  philosophical  pole-word  '  practical  reason,  pure 
I '  ceases  only  to  stand  in  the  zenith  of  heaven  hke  a 
pole-star  which  marks  no  north,  and  consequently  no 
quarter  of  the  world. 


40  LEVANA. 

We  should  know  better  how  to  value  and  protect  this 
spirit  of  life,  this  individuality,  if  it  always  stood  forth  as 
strongly  as  in  the  man  of  genius.  For  we  all  perceive 
how  great  a  defeat  of  spirits  would  arise  in  a  passive  war 
of  giants :  if,  for  instance,  Kant,  Raffaelle,  Mozart,  Cato, 
Frederick  the  Great,  Charles  the  Twelfth,  Aristophanes, 
Swift,  Tasso,  and  so  forth,  were  all  forced  into  the  same 
press,  and  formed  in  the  same  mould.  Even  one  man  of 
genius,  by  the  exchange  and  compensation  of  individual 
peculiarities,  could  only  become  another,  in  a  manner 
resembling  the  forcible  union  of  two  polypi.  But  if  the 
primary  faculty  of  an  ordinary  nature  be  broken,  what 
can  result  from  it  but  a  perpetual  confused  wandering 
about  itself,  —  a  half  imitation  arising  in  spite,  not  out  of, 
itself,  —  a  parasitical  worm  living  on  another  being,  the 
mimic  of  every  new  example,  the  slave  of  every  master 
at  his  elbow  ?  If  a  human  being  is  once  thrown  out  of 
his  own  individuahty  into  a  foreign  one,  the  centre  of 
gravity  that  held  together  his  whole  inner  world  becomes 
movable  and  wanders  from  spot  to  spot,  and  one  oscilla- 
tion passes  into  another.  In  the  mean  time  the  teacher 
has  to  separate  from  the  individuality  which  he  allows  to 
grow,  another  which  he  must  either  bend  or  guide ;  the 
one  is  that  of  the  head,  the  other  that  of  the  heart 
Every  intellectual  peculiarity,  be  it  mathematical,  artistic, 
philosophical,  is  a  beating  heart,  which  all  teaching  and 
gifts  only  serve  as  conducting  veins  to  fill  it  with  material 
for  working  and  motion.  At  this  exact  point  more  weight 
may  be  added  to  the  preponderating  weight  of  natural 
disposition  ;  and  the  teacher  must  not  give,  in  the  morn- 
ing of  life,  a  sleeping  draught  —  say  to  peculiar  talents  for 
art  The  moral  nature,  however,  must  be  quite  differ- 
ently treated ;   if  that  is  melody,  this  is  harmony :  you 


INDIVIDUALITY    OF    THE    IDEAL    MAN.       41 

must  not  enfeeble  an  Euler  by  ingrafting  on  him  a 
Petrarch,  nor  the  latter  by  the  former  ;  for  no  intellectual 
power  can  become  too  great,  and  no  painter  too  great  a 
painter.  But  every  moral  faculty  needs  to  have  its 
boundaries  fixed  in  order  to  the  cultivation  of  its  balan- 
cing powers :  and  Frederick  the  Great  may  take  his  flute, 
and  Napoleon  his  Ossian.  Here  education  may,  for  in- 
stance, deliver  sermons  on  peace  to  the  heroic  character, 
and  charge  with  electric  thunder  the  disposition  of  a 
Siegwart.  So  one  might  —  since,  with  girls,  head  and 
heart  are  reciprocal — frequently  put  a  cooking-spoon  into 
the  hand  of  the  boy  of  genius,  and  into  that  of  the  little 
cook  by  birth  some  romantic  feather  from  a  poet's  wing. 
For  the  rest,  let  it  be  a  law  that,  as  every  faculty  is  holy, 
none  must  be  weakened  in  itself,  but  only  have. its  op- 
posing one  aroused ;  by  which  means  it  is  added  har- 
moniously to  the  whole.  So,  for  instance,  a  weakly 
affectionate  heart  must  not  be  hardened,  but  its  sense  of 
honor  and  purity  must  be  strengthened  :  the  daring  spirit 
must  not  be  rudely  checked  and  made  timid,  but  only 
taught  to  be  loving  and  prudent. 

The  conditions  may  now  be  required  of  me,  under 
which  is  to  be  formed  the  character  of  the  child,  and  also 
that  of  the  prize  or  ideal  man  into  which  he  is  to  be 
fashioned.  But  for  that  purpose  one  book  among  the 
endless  multitude  of  books  would  not  serve ;  moreover, 
the  books  must  possess  the  rare  gift  of  being  interpreters 
of  the  dreams  and  symbols  of  the  closely-folded  child's 
character ;  which,  in  a  child,  who  does  not  display  every- 
thing matured  as  a  grown-up  man,  but  only  budding, 
would  be  as  difficult  to  discover  as  a  butterfly  in  the 
chrysahs  to  all  who  are  not  Swaramerdams.  But,  alas ! 
three  things  are  very  difficult  to  discover  and  to  impart,  — 


42  LEVANA. 

to  have  a  character,  —  to  draw  one,  —  to  guess  one.  To 
ordinary  teachers  a  naughty  trick  seems  a  wicked  nature, 
—  a  pimple  or  a  pock-mark  as  parts  of  the  countenance. 

If  one  must  translate  the  prize  and  ideal  man  into 
words,  one  might  perhaps  say,  that  it  is  the  harmonious 
maximum  of  all  individual  qualities  taken  together,  which, 
without  regard  to  the  resemblance  of  the  harmony,  is  yet 
connected  in  all  its  different  parts,  as  one  tone  in  music  is 
to  another.  Whosoever  now,  out  of  the  musical  ah  c  d  e 
f  g,  should  change,  for  instance,  a  piece  set  in  a  to  by 
would  injure  the  piece  much,  but  not  so  much  as  a  teacher 
who  would  convert  the  ail-variously  arranged  natures  of 
children  into  one  uniform  tone. 

§  30. 

To  elevate  above  the  spirit  of  the  age  must  be  regarded 
as  the  end  of  education ;  and  this  must  stand  clearly  de- 
veloped before  us  ere  we  mark  out  the  appointed  road. 
The  child  is  not  to  be  educated  for  the  present,  —  for  this 
is  done  without  our  aid  unceasingly  and  powerfully,  —  but 
for  the  remote  future,  and  often  in  opposition  to  the 
immediate  future.  The  spirit  which  is  to  be  shunned 
must  be  known.     Permit  me,  then,  a 


THIRD    CHAPTER, 

ON   THE    SPIRIT   OF   THE    AGE. 
§31. 

OU  invoke  the  spirit  of  the  age  freely  and  boldly. 


Y 


but  let  it  truly  appear  before  us  in  your  discourse, 
and  do  you  answer !    Since  time  separates  into  ages,  as 


SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE.  43 

the  rainbow  into  falling  drops,  indicate  the  greatness  of 
the  age  of  whose  indwelling  spirit  you  speak.  Has  it  a 
century  of  duration ;  and  by  what  chronology  is  it  reck- 
oned, —  the  Jewish,  the  Christian,  the  Turkish,  or  the 
French?  Does  not  the  expression  "  spirit  of  the  century  " 
easily  escape  the  hps  of  a  man  because  he,  born  in  a  cen- 
tury, and  partly  measuring  one  with  his  life,  really  means 
nothing  more  by  "  age "  than  the  little  day-span  which 
the  eternal  sun  describes  from  the  morning  to  the  even- 
ing of  his  life  ?  Or  does  the  age  extend  from  one  great 
event  (the  Reformation,  for  instance)  to  another,  so  that 
the  spirit  of  the  first  vanishes  as  soon  as  the  second  is 
bom  ?  And  what  revolution  will  be  considered  by  you 
the  animating  one  of  the  age,  —  a  philosophical,  a  moral,  a 
poetical,  or  a  political  one  ? 

Further :  is  not  every  spirit  of  the  age  less  changing 
than  flying,  —  indeed,  already  flown ;  what  might  be 
more  properly  called  the  spirit  of  that  immediately  pre- 
ceding ?  For  its  traces  presuppose  that  it  is  already  gone, 
consequently  gone  further.  And  only  from  lofty  heights 
can  the  backward  road  be  surveyed,  and  the  future 
estimated. 

But  since  the  same  period  unfolds  at  the  present  time 
a  totally  different  spirit  in  Saturn,  —  in  his  satellites, 
in  his  rings,  —  upon  all  the  countless  worlds  of  the  pres- 
ent ;  and  again  in  London,  Paris,  Warsaw ;  and  since  it 
follows  that  the  present  moment  of  time  must  have  a 
million  different  spirits  of  the  age,  I  would  ask  you 
where  the  invoked  spirit  of  the  age  is  clearly  manifested, 
—  in  Germany,  France,  or  where?  As  before  you 
found  it  difficult  to  mark  out  its  limits  in  time,  so  will 
you  now  to  determine  them  in  space. 

I  partly  spare  you  the  great  question  which  concerns 


44  LEVANA. 

every  one,  yourself  among  the  number,  —  how  you,  how 
all  encircled  in  the  same  age,  can  raise  yourselves  so  far 
above  its  waves  as  to  be  able  to  observe  its  course,  not 
merely  to  feel  its  dark,  irresistible  march  ?  And  does  not 
the  stream  which  bears  you  lead  into  an  ocean,  whose 
movements  you  cannot  measure,  because  it  has  no  shore  ? 

§32. 

What  we  call  spirit  of  the  age  our  ancestors  called  the 
end  of  the  world,  the  latest  times,  signs  of  the  last  day, 
kingdom  of  the  Devil  and  of  Antichrist.  Mere  melancholy 
names !  No  golden  or  innocent  age  ever  called  itself 
golden,  but  only  expected  one ;  and  an  age  of  lead  ex- 
pected one  of  arsenic :  —  only  the  past  ghtters,  as  ships 
occasionally  draw  after  them  a  shining  train.  But  the 
former  interpretations  of  dreams  and  gazings  into  the 
present — would  that  some  one  would  collect  such  a  dream- 
book  of  departed  great  spirits !  —  teach  us  mistrust  of 
those  now  made.  If  man,  from  the  observation  of  the 
three  quarters  of  the  globe,  could  not  prophetically  con- 
struct the  fourth  from  the  combinations  of  matter,  far  less 
can  he  divine  a  future  from  the  more  complicated  ones  of 
spirit.  For  man  is  feeble  and  poor :  his  star-reading  of 
the  future  —  a  mere  strengthening  or  weakening  of  the 
present  —  sees  only  a  crescent  moon  in  the  sky,  which 
waxes  and  wanes  in  unison  with  him,  but  no  sun.  Every 
one  regards  his  own  life  as  the  new-year's  eve  of  time, 
and  also,  like  the  superstitious,  his  dreams,  woven  from 
memories,  as  prophecies  for  the  year.  Thence  there  al- 
ways comes,  not  the  foretold  good  or  evil,  nor  yet  its 
opposite,  but  something  quite  different,  which  receives  the 
prophecies  and  their  objects  as  an  ocean  does  the  rivers, 
and  resolves  them  into  the  circle  of  its  waves.     For,  in 


SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE.  45 

the  moment  when  you  are  prophesying  in  the  desert,  the 
fine  seed-pollen  of  an  oak  falls  upon  the  earth,  and,  in  a 
century,  grows  up  to  be  a  forest.  How,  indeed,  could 
man  accurately  divine  any  approaching  age  without  at  the 
same  time  knowing  and  depicting  all  after  times?  He, 
for  instance,  who,  from  the  present  course  and  position  of 
the  winds,  clouds,  and  planets  during  one  academical  half- 
year  could  accurately  guess  the  weather  of  a  second, 
might  and  must  be  able,  from  the  data  he  had  foretold,  to 
decipher  the  third  season's  weather,  and  from  that  every 
succeeding  one,  —  supposing  no  intervention  ;  —  but  there 
do  always  intervene  comets,  earthquakes,  the  clearing  of 
forests,  or  the  growth  of  new  ones,  and  all  the  other  power 
of  the  Almighty.  In  the  same  way,  before  the  eye  of  the 
seer,  one  century  after  another  must  be  produced  in  regu- 
lar order,  consequently  thousands  of  years,  and  finally,  the 
whole  time  which  can  dwell  upon  an  earth;  supposing, 
as  has  been  already  said,  nothing  intervenes.  But,  heav- 
ens !  what  is  there  does  not  intervene !  The  prophet 
himself — and  the  freedom  of  the  spiritual  world  —  and 
the  Almighty,  who  here  withdraws  and  there  sends  forth 
spirits  and  suns.  Thus  it  is  that  every  one  lives  so  com- 
pletely in  a  spiritual  twilight  (a  beautiful  word  for  that 
dusky  time  of  day),  that  God  himself  decides  which  of 
the  two  contending  Ughts  shall  gain  the  victory  by  a  new 
one  from  the  sun  or  the  moon,  which  men  so  frequently 
mistake  the  one  for  the  other. 

§33. 

How,  indeed,  were  this  foregoing  two-and-thirtieth 
paragraph  to  be  written  or  to  be  comprehended,  if  some- 
thing more  were  not  added  about  it ;  namely,  a  three-and- 
thirtieth  which  follows  after  it?     The  older  the  world 


46  LEVANA. 

grows,  the  more  complacently  can  it,  and  will  it,  adopt 
the  prophesying  character  of  an  elder.  From  the  fore- 
world  a  spirit  speaks  an  ancient  language  to  us,  which  we 
should  not  understand  if  it  were  not  born  with  us.  It  is 
the  spirit  of  eternity,  which  judges  and  overlooks  every 
spirit  of  time.  And  what  does  it  say  of  the  present  ? 
Very  hard  words.  —  It  says  that  the  age  can  now  more 
easily  raise  up  a  great  people  than  a  great  man  ;  because 
the  powerful  union  springing  from  civilization  joins  to- 
gether the  men  of  one  spirit,  like  the  vapor-drops  of  a 
huge  steam-engine ;  so  that  even  war  is  now  only  a  war- 
game  between  two  living  creatures.  Something,  it  says, 
must  have  decayed  in  our  age,  for  even  the  mighty  earth- 
quake of  the  Revolution,  before  which  for  centuries,  as 
before  a  physical  earthquake,  an  infinite  multitude  of 
worms  had  crept  out  of  the  ground  and  covered  it,  has 
produced  and  left  behind  it  nothing  greater  than  pretty 
wings  on  these  said  worms.  The  spirit  of  Eternity, 
which  judges  the  heart  and  the  world,  strongly  declares 
what  spirit  is  wanting  to  the  present  men  inspired  by  the 
senses,  to  these  fire-worshippers  of  the  passions, —  the 
holy  one  of  Him  who  is  above  the  earth.  The  ruins  of 
his  temple  sink  lower  and  lower  into  the  present  earth. 
Prayer  is  thought  to  draw  along  with  it  the  false  lights  of 
fanaticism.  The  apprehension  and  belief  in  what  is  be- 
yond the  world,  which  formerly  extended  its  roots  under 
the  foulest  ages,  bears  no  fruits  in  our  pure  thin  air.  If, 
formerly,  religion  was  in  war,  there  is  now  no  longer  war 
in  religion,  —  there  has  grown  for  us  out  of  the  world  a 
mighty  edifice,  out  of  ether  a  cloud,  out  of  God  a  mere 
power,  out  of  heaven  a  coffin ! 

At  last  the  spirit  of  Eternity  holds  up  before  us  our 
shamelessness,  by  which  we,  in  our  darkness,  have  per- 


SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE.  47 

mitted  to  play,  as  a  festive  illumination,  the  flames  of  an- 
ger, love,  and  desire,  from  which  all  religions,  all  ancient 
nations,  all  great  men,  have  held  themselves  aloof,  or  re- 
garded with  shame :  and  it  says  that  we,  living  only  in 
our  hate  and  hunger,  like  other  decaying  corpses,  only 
retain  our  teeth  uninjured,  the  instruments  both  of  re- 
venge and  enjoyment.  Passion  belongs  of  right  to  the 
sickness  of  the  age:  nowhere  is  found  so  much  impa- 
tience, carelessness,  indulgence  towards  self,  and  unrelent- 
ing selfishness  towards  others,  as  on  the  sick-bed.  Now 
this  century  lies  upon  a  sick-bed.  As  among  the  Spartans 
the  men  cut  away  a  full  prominent  breast  as  something 
womanish,  so  is  the  same  thing  done  now  in  spiritual  mat- 
ters, under  the  same  pretext ;  and  the  heart  must  be  as 
hard  as  the  cavity  of  the  breast  above  it.  Finally,  there 
are  some  very  cultivated  men  who  split  themselves  in 
opposite  directions  towards  heaven  and  hell,  as  a  salaman- 
der cut  in  two  runs  forward  with  its  front,  backwards  with 
its  hind  part. 

§34. 

So  speaks  the  severe  spirit  within  us,  the  eternal  one ; 
but  it  becomes  milder  if  we  hear  it  to  the  end.  Every 
heartfelt  lamentation  and  weeping  over  any  age  points, 
like  a  spring  on  a  mountain,  to  some  higher  mountain  or 
peak ;  only  those  nations  remain  sunk  in  their  lethargy 
who  go  in  the  same  dull  path  from  age  to  age,  not  lament- 
ing over  themselves,  but  over  others :  and  those  who  suffer 
from  the  mental  falling-sickness  of  the  French  philosophy 
have,  like  bodily  epileptics,  no  consciousness  of  their  mal- 
ady, but  only  pride  in  their  strength.  Sorrow  of  the 
spirit  (as  Night,  according  to  the  Greeks)  is  the  mother 
of  gods ;  though  that  of  the  body  is  a  dark  mist,  bringing 
poison  and  death.     The  bold  and  soaring  thought  of  the 


48  LEVANA. 

Talmudists  —  that  even  God  prays,  like  that  of  the 
Greeks,  that  Jupiter  was  subject  to  fate  —  receives  a 
meaning  from  the  lofty,  though  often  conquered  longings  of 
the  soul,  which  the  Infinite  himself  has  planted  within  us. 
One  religion  after  another  fades  away,  but  the  religious 
sense,  which  created  them  all,  can  never  become  dead  to 
humanity:  consequently,  it  will  only  manifest  and  lead 
its  future  life  in  more  purified  forms.  The  saying  of 
Tyrt^us,*  that  God,  in  the  commencement,  appeared  to 
men  in  their  own  likeness,  then  as  a  voice,  and  afterwards 
only  in  dreams,  and  by  inspiration  (or  spiritual  illumina- 
tion), has  a  beautiful  signification  for  ours,  and  all  future 
ages,  if  by  dream  we  understand  poetry,  and  by  illumina- 
tion, philosophy.  So  long  as  the  word  God  endures  in  a 
language,  will  it  direct  the  eyes  of  men  upwards.  It  is 
with  the  Eternal  as  with  the  sun,  which,  if  but  its  small- 
est part  can  shine  uneclipsed,  prolongs  the  day,  and  gives 
its  rounded  image  in  the  dark  chamber.  Even  in  France, 
which  could  for  a  short  time  observe  a  total  eclipse  of  the 
sun,  arose  a  Chateaubriand,  a  St.  Martin  and  his  admir- 
ers, and  other  kindred  spirits.  Our  present  age  is  indeed 
a  criticising  and  a  critical  one,  wavering  between  the  de- 
sire and  the  inability  to  believe,  —  a  chaos  of  times  strug- 
gling against  one  another :  but  even  a  chaotic  world  must 
have  a  centre,  revolution  round  that  point,  and  an  atmos- 
phere ;  there  is  no  such  thing  as  mere  disorder  and  con- 
fusion, but  even  that  presupposes  its  opposite  in  order  to 
begin.  The  present  religious  wars  on  paper  and  in  tlie 
brain  —  very  different  from  former  ones,  which  were 
tempests  full  of  heat,  rage,  devastation,  and  fertilization  — 
rather  resemble  the  northern  lights  (thunder  and  light- 
ning of  the  higher  and  colder  quarters  of  the  sky),  full  of 
*  Tyrtseus  de  Apparitione  Dei,  c.  17. 


SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE.  49 

noisy  lights  without  blows,  full  of  strange  shapes  and  full 
of  frost,  without  rain  and  in  the  night.  Does  not,  in  fact, 
the  bold  self-consciousness  —  the  life  of  this  age  —  extend 
still  further  the  original  character  of  man  and  mind? 
And  can  the  character  of  men,  the  mental  waking,  ever 
be  too  much  awake  ?  At  present  it  is  only  not  sufficiently 
so ;  for  an  object  is  necessary  to  reflection,  as  its  absence 
is  to  thoughtlessness ;  and  the  common  minds  of  the  age 
are  too  impoverished  to  give  a  rich  field  to  reflection. 
But  there  is  one  strange,  ever-returning  spectacle :  that 
every  age  has  regarded  the  dawning  of  new  light  as  the 
destroying  fire  of  morality ;  while  that  very  age  itself, 
with  heart  uninjured,  finds  itself  raised  one  degree  of 
light  above  the  preceding !  Is  it,  perhaps,  that  as  light 
travels  faster  than  heat,  and  as  it  is  more  easy  to  work  upon 
the  head  than  on  the  heart,  the  burst  of  light,  by  its  sud- 
denness, always  appears  inimical  to  the  unprepared  heart? 

To  the  present  age  is  ascribed  productiveness  and 
changeablen ess  of  opinions,  and  at  the  same  time  indif- 
ference to  opinions.  But  that  cannot  arise  from  this  :  no 
man  in  all  corrupted  Europe  can  be  indifferent  to  truth 
as  such  ;  for  it,  in  the  last  resort,  decides  upon  his  life  ; 
but  every  one  is  at  last  become  cold  and  shy  towards  the 
erring  teachers  and  preachers  of  truth.  Take  the  hardest 
heart  and  brain  which  withers  away  in  any  capital  city, 
and  only  give  him  the  certainty  that  the  spirit  which 
approaches  brings  down  from  eternity  the  key  which 
opens  and  shuts  the  so  weighty  gates  of  his  life-prison, 
of  death,  and  of  heaven, —  and  the  dried-up  worldly  man, 
so  long  as  he  has  a  care  or  a  wish,  must  seek  for  a  truth 
which  can  reveal  to  him  that  spirit. 

The  present  march  of  light  indicates  anything  rather 
than  standing  still ;  and  it  is  only  this  which  begets  and 


50  LEVANA. 

immortalizes  poison,  as  it  is  on  stagnant  air  that  tempests 
and  whirlwinds  break.  Certainly  we  are  very  little  able 
to  determine  in  what  manner  a  brighter  age  than  that  we 
have  experienced  will  be  educed  from  the  present  troub- 
lous fermentation.  Every  varied  age  —  and  therefore 
our  own  —  is  only  a  spiritual  climate  for  an  approaching 
spiritual  seed;  but  we  do  not  know  what  foreign  seed 
heaven  will  cast  into  it. 

Every  sin  appears  new  and  near,  as  in  painting  black 
stands  out  most  strongly ;  man  is  readily  accustomed  to 
the  repetition  of  love,  but  not  to  the  repetition  of  injustice. 
Thence  every  one  regards  his  own  age  as  morally  worse, 
and  intellectually  better  than  it  really  is ;  for  in  science 
the  new  is  an  advance :  but  in  morals  the  new,  as  a  con- 
tradiction to  our  inner  ideals  and  our  historic  idols,  is  ever 
a  retrogression.  As  in  past  ages  the  errors  of  nations, 
unlike  decorative  paintings,  seem  very  distorted  and 
shapeless,  because  distance  hides  from  us  their  finer  and 
true  completeness  ;  so,  on  the  other  side,  the  black  sin- 
stains  of  the  past,  of  the  Roman  and  Spartan,  for  example, 
show  softened  and  rounded,  and,  as  on  a  moon,  the  high 
rugged  shadow  of  the  past  falls  round  and  transparent  on 
the  present.  For  instance,  if  men  estimate  the  worth  of 
the  age  after  a  war,  that  most  ancient  barbarism  of  human- 
ity, and  especially  after  the  bad  innovations  consequent 
upon  it,  then  the  spirit  of  the  age  rises  before  this  touch 
of  death,  in  frightful  illumination  and  distortion.  But  war, 
as  the  general  storm  in  the  moral  world,  and  the  tongue 
and  heart-confusing  Babel  of  the  physical  world,  had  in 
every  age  repeated  injustices,  which  only  appeared  ncAv 
because  each  had  heard  from  the  preceding  age  nothing 
save  the  number  of  the  vanquished  armies  and  towns  ; 
but  experienced  in  itself  the  sufferings.    On  the  contrary, 


SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE.  51 

our  age  has,  before  every  other,  besides  a  certain  human- 
ity of  war,  in  respect  to  life,  also  a  growing  insight  into 
its  unlawfulness. 

Among  nations  the  head  has  at  all  times  preceded  the 
heart  by  centuries,  as  in  the  slave-trade ;  yes,  by  thou- 
sands of  years,  as  will  perhaps  be  the  case  in  war. 

§35. 

Since  modes  of  life  beget  modes  of  thought,  and  opin- 
ions actions,  and  head  and  heart,  spiritually  as  well  as 
physically,  mutually  improve  or  injure  each  other,  so  has 
fate,  when  both  are  to  be  healed  at  once,  only  one  cure, 
and  that  a  long  one;  the  harsh  viper-like  cure  of  affliction. 
If  sorrow  purifies  men,  why  not  nations  ?  Certainly,  and 
it  is  for  this  reason  that  men  perceive  it  less,  if  wounds 
and  fast-days  improve  the  one,  battle-fields  and  centuries 
of  penance  do  the  other,  and  generations  must  sink  sadly 
and  sorrowfully  to  destruction.  Not  by  a  splendid  martial 
funeral  with  firing  of  cannon,  but  by  a  battle  of  the  ele- 
ments, is  the  sky  made  blue  and  the  earth  fruitful.  At 
the  same  time  in  history,  as  in  the  almanac,  the  thick,  dull 
St.  Thomas's  day  is  shorter  than  the  bright,  warm  St 
John's  day,  although  both  conduct  into  new  seasons  of 
the  year. 

But  until,  and  in  order  that,  our  children  and  children's 
children  may  pass  through  the  winter  centuries,  this  it  is 
that  nearly  affects  us  and  education.  "We  must  meet  the 
great  entanglement  by  partial  unravellings.  The  child 
must  be  armed  against  the  future ;  yes,  even  against  the 
close-pressing  present,  with  a  counterbalancing  weight  of 
three  powers  against  the  three  weaknesses  of  the  will,  of 
love,  and  of  religion.  Our  age  has  only  a  passionate 
power  of  desire,  like   animals,  the  mad,  the  sick,  and 


52  LEVANA. 

every  weakling  ;  but  not  that  enei*gy  of  will  which  wa»s 
most  nobly  displayed  in  Sparta  and  Rome,  —  in  the  Stoa, 
and  in  the  early  Church.  And  now  the  arts,  as  the  state 
formerly  did,  must  harden  the  young  spirit,  and  subdue 
the  will.  The  uniform  color  of  a  stoic  oneness  must 
extinguish  the  common  praise  of  the  various  tiger-spots 
and  serpent  brilliancy  of  passionate  agitation ;  the  girl  and 
the  boy  must  learn  that  there  is  something  in  the  ocean 
higher  than  its  waves ;  namely,  a  Christ  who  calls  upon 
them. 

When  the  stoic  energy  of  will  is  formed,  there  is  then  a 
loving  spirit  made  free.  Fear  is  more  egoistic  than  cour- 
age, because  it  is  more  needy  ;  the  exhausting  parasitical 
plants  of  selfishness  only  attach  themselves  to  decayed 
trunks.  But  power  kills  what  is  feeble,  as  strong  decoc- 
tion of  quassia  kills  flies.  If  man,  created  more  for  love 
than  for  opposition,  can  only  attain  a  free,  cleai'  space,  he 
possesses  love ;  and  that  is  love  of  the  strongest  kind, 
which  builds  on  rocks,  not  on  waves.  Let  the  bodily 
heart  be  the  pattern  of  the  spiritual ;  easily  injured,  sen- 
sitive, lively,  and  warm,  but  yet  a  tough,  free-beating 
muscle,  behind  the  lattice-work  of  bones,  and  its  tender 
nerves  are  difficult  to  find. 

As  there  is  no  contest  about  the  nature  of  power  and 
love,  but  only  of  the  ways  to  attain  them  (these,  however, 
penetrate  deep  into  the  matter) ;  but,  as  about  religion, 
on  the  contrary,  the  doubts  of  many  must  first  be  solved 
as  to  whether  there  be  only  one,  and  whether  different 
paths  lead  to  it,  so  the  third  point  in  which  the  child  is  to 
be  educated  against  the  age,  must  endeavor  to  establish 
first,  instead  of  the  means,  the  right  to  educate  religiously. 
Power  and  love  are  two  opposing  forces  of  the  inner  man ; 
'  but  religion  is  the  equal  union  of  both,  the  man  within  the 
man. 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  53 

CHAPTER    IV. 

RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION. 
§36. 

RELIGION  is  now  no  longer  a  national,  but  a  house- 
hold goddess.  Our  little  age  is  a  magnifying-glass, 
through  which,  as  is  well  known,  the  exalted  appears  flat 
and  level.  Since  we  now  send  all  our  children  out  into  a 
townlike  futurity,  in  which  the  broken  church-bells  only 
dully  call  the  populous  market-place  to  the  silent  church, 
we  must,  more  anxiously  than  ever,  seek  to  give  them  a 
house  of  prayer  in  the  heart,  and  folded  hands,  and  humil- 
ity before  the  invisible  world,  if  we  believe  in  a  religion 
and  distinguish  it  from  morality. 

The  history  of  nations  determines  that  there  is  this 
separation.  There  have  been  many  religions,  but  there 
is  only  one  code  of  morals ;  in  those  a  god  has  always 
become  a  man,  and  therefore  been  concealed  under  many 
folds  ;  in  this  a  man  has  become  God,  and  been  clearly 
manifested.  The  middle  ages  had,  along  with  moral 
churchyards  full  of  dead  bodies  and  rank  vegetation,  full 
of  cruelty  and  lust,  also  churches  and  spires  for  the  relig- 
ious sentiment.  In  our  times,  on  the  contrary,  the  sacred 
groves  of  religion  are  cleared  and  trodden  down,  and  the 
public  roads  of  morality  made  straighter  and  more  sure. 
Ah  !  a  contemporaneous  decline  of  religion  and  morality 
would  be  too  sad !  The  age  will  conceal  the  departure 
of  the  sense  for  the  heavenly  by  the  greater  sharpness 
and  severity  of  that  for  the  moral ;  and  at  least  by  small, 
delicate,  and  therefore  more  numerous,  sides  acquire  a 
moral  breadth.     As  men  in  towns,  where  they  cannot 


54  LEVANA. 

build  in  width  build  in  height,  so  we,  reversing  the  mat- 
ter, build  in  width  instead  of  in  height ;  more  over  the 
earth  than  into  the  sky.  We  may  truly  say  that  France, 
in  general,  with  its  chemical,  physical,  mathematical,  and 
warlike  noonday  lights,  can  hardly  behold  in  the  starry 
heaven  of  religion  more  than  a  last  shadowy  quarter  of 
the  moon,  resembling  rather  a  cloud  than  a  star ;  whilst 
in  England  and  Germany  religion  is  still  at  least  seen  as 
a  distant  milky-way,  and  on  paper  as  a  star-chart ;  but 
one  could  not,  without  injustice,  describe  the  religious  dif- 
ference of  these  countries  as  a  moral  one.  And  was  and 
is  stoicism,  this  noble  son  of  morality,  as  love  is  its  daugh- 
ter, in  and  by  itself  religion  ?  If  the  difference  between 
religion  and  morality  were  not  founded  on  something  true, 
it  were  incomprehensible  how  so  many  fanatical  sects  of 
the  early  and  later  centuries  —  for  instance,  the  Quietists 
—  could  have  arrived  at  the  illusive  belief  that  in  the 
inmost  enthusiastic  love  of  God  enduring  sinfulness  con- 
sumes itself,  so  that  none  remains  as  it  does  in  the  worldly 
man.  It  is  true,  that  religiousness,  in  its  highest  degree, 
is  identical  with  morality,  and  this  with  that ;  but  that 
equally  pertains  to  the  highest  degree  of  every  power; 
and  every  sun  wanders  only  through  the  heavenly  ether. 
All  that  is  divine  must  as  certainly  meet  and  unite  with 
morality,  as  science  and  art,  so  that  in  every  soul  rescued 
from  sin  there  must  as  certainly  be  religious  Tabors  as 
there  are  hills  in  the  crater  of  ^tna. 

It  must  be  understood  that  we  do  not  here  speak  of 
that  beggar  religion  which  only  prays  and  sings  before 
the  gates  of  heaven,  until  the  Peter's  pence  are  bestowed 
upon  it. 

§37. 

What,  then,  is  religion?     Prayerfully  pronounce  the 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  55 

answer.  The  belief  in  God ;  for  it  is  not  only  a  sense 
for  the  holy,  and  a  belief  in  the  invisible,  but  a  presenti- 
ment of  it,  without  which  no  kingdom  of  the  incompre- 
hensible were  conceivable.  Efface  God  from  the  heart, 
and  everything  which  lies  above  or  below  the  earth  is 
only  a  recurring  enlargement  of  it ;  that  which  is  above 
the  earth  would  become  only  a  higher  grade  of  mechan- 
ism, and  consequently,  earthly. 

If  the  question  is  put,  What  do  you  mean  by  the  word 
God?  I  will  let  an  old  German,  Sebastian  Frank, answer: 
"  God  is  an  unutterable  sigh  lying  in  the  depths  of  the 
soul."  A  beautiful,  profound  saying !  But  as  the  unut- 
terable dwells  in  every  soul,  it  must  be  manifested  to 
every  stranger  by  words.  Let  me  give  to  the  G^d-fear- 
ing  spirit  of  every  age,  the  words  of  our  times,  and  listen 
to  what  it  says  of  religion. 

/  "  Religion  is,  in  the  beginning,  the  learning  of  God ;  — 
hence  the  great  name  divine,  one  learned  about  God,  — 
truly  religion  is  the  blessedness  arising  from  a  knowledge 
of  God.  Without  God  we  are  lonely  throughout  eternity; 
but  if  we  have  God  we  are  more  warmly,  more  intimately, 
more  steadfastly  united  than  by  friendship  and  love.  I 
am  then  no  longer  alone  with  my  spirit.  Its  great  first 
friend,  the  Everlasting,  whom  it  recognizes,  the  inborn 
friend  of  its  innermost  soul,  will  abandon  it  as  little  as  it 
can  do  itself,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  impure  or  empty 
whirl  of  trifles  and  of  sins,  on  the  market-place,  and  the 
battle-field,  I  stand  with  closed  breast  in  which  the  Al- 
mighty and  All-holy  speaks  to  me,  and  reposes  before  me 
like  a  near  sun,  behind  which  the  outer  world  lies  in 
darkness.  I  have  entered  into  his  church,  the  temple  of 
the  universe,  and  remain  therein  blessed,  devout,  pious, 
even  if  the  temple  should  become  dark,  or  cold,  or  under- 


56  LEVANA. 

mined  by  graves.  What  I  do,  or  suffer,  is  as  little  a 
sacrifice  to  him  as  I  can  offer  one  to  myself;  I  love  him 
whether  I  suffer  or  not.  The  flame  from  heaven  falls  on 
the  altar  of  sacrifice,  and  consumes  the  beast,  but  the 
flame  and  the  priest  remain.  If  my  great  friend  demand 
something  from  me,  the  heaven  and  the  earth  seem  glori- 
ous to  me,  and  I  am  happy  as  he  is  ;  if  he  deny  me  any- 
thing, it  is  a  storm  on  the  ocean,  but  it  is  spanned  by 
rainbows,  and  I  recognize  above  it  the  kindly  sun  which 
has  no  tempestuous  sides,  but  only  sunshiny  ones.  A 
code  of  morality  only  rules  bad,  unloving  souls,  in  order 
that  they  may  first  become  better  and  afterwards  good. 
But  the  loving  contemplation  of  the  soul's  first  friend, 
who  abundantly  animates  those  laws,  banishes  not  merely 
the  bad  thoughts  which  conquer,  but  those  also  which 
tempt.  As  the  eagle  flies  high  above  the  highest  moun- 
tains, so  does  true  love  above  struggling  duty. 

"Where  religion  is,  there  both  men,  and  beasts,  and 
the  whole  world  are  loved.  Every  being  is  a  moving 
temple  of  the  Infinite.  Everything  earthly  purifies  and 
suns  itself  in  the  thought  of  him ;  only  one  earthly  thing 
remains  darkly  existent,  sin,  the  true  annihilation  of  the 
soul ;  or  the  unceasing  Tantalus,  Satan. 

"  One  may  with  some  right  speak  to  others  about  that 
of  which  one  never  speaks  to  one's  self:  for  within  me  he 
is  so  near  me,  that  I  can  with  difficulty  separate  his  word 
and  mine ;  for  from  the  second  self  my  own  is  reflected, 
and  I  only  find  him  who  illumines  myself  as  well  as  the 
dew-drop. 

"  But  if  it  be  no  error  to  believe  all  this,  how  wilt  thou, 
O  God!  appear  to  those  who  have  overcome  the  agitations 
of  life  in  the  one  still  hour  of  death ;  then  when  world 
after  world,  human  being  after  human  being,  has  disap- 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  57 

peared,  and  nothing  but  the  Eternal  remains  with  the 
mortal  immortal?  He  who  brings  God  with  him  into 
the  last  darkest  night  cannot  know  what  it  is  to  die ;  for 
he  beholds  the  eternal  star  in  the  boundless  distance.'* 

If  you  do  not  believe  that  religion  is  the  poetry  of 
morality,  the  lofty,  nay,  the  loftiest,  style  of  hfe,  think  less 
of  the  mystic  enthusiasts,  who,  as  despisers  of  the  doctrine 
of  happiness,  were  willing  to  be  damned,  if  but  the  love 
of  God  remained  within  them,  than  of  Fenelon:  could 
you  be  purer,  more  steadfast,  richer,  more  self-sacrificing, 
or  more  blessed  than  he,  at  once  child,  woman,  man,  and 
angel  ? 

§38. 

How,  then,  is  the  child  to  be  led  into  the  new  world 
of  rehgion?  Not  by  arguments.  Every  step  of  finite 
knowledge  can  be  reached  by  learning  and  perseverance ; 
but  the  Infinite,  which  supports  the  end  of  those  steps, 
can  only  be  seen  at  a  glance,  not  reached  by  counting ;  we 
arrive  there  by  wings,  not  by  steps.  To  prove,  as  to  doubt, 
the  existence  of  God,  is  to  prove  or  to  doubt  the  existence 
of  existence.  The  soul  seeks  its  original,  —  not  merely 
an  original  world  near  the  present  one,  —  that  freedom 
from  which  finite  existence  received  its  laws ;  but  it  could 
not  seek  if  it  did  not  know  and  did  not  possess.  The 
greatness  of  religion  is  not  confined  to  one  opinion,  it  ex- 
tends over  the  whole  man;  as  greatness,  of  whatever 
kind,  resembles  the  rock-bound  mountains,  one  of  which 
is  never  found  alone  in  a  level  plain,  but  rises  up  among 
neighboring  heights,  and  extends  into  a  mountain  range. 

As  there  is  no  corporeal  world  without  a  spiritual  soul 
(or  no  resurrection-ashes  without  a  phcenix),  so  there  is 
no  soul  or  spiritual  world  without  God;  just  as  in  the 
same  way  there  is  no  fate  without  a  Providence. 
3* 


58  LEVANA. 

The  purest  distinction  of  man  from  the  lower  animals 
is  neither  reflection  nor  morality ;  for  sparks  at  least  of 
these  stars  shine  in  the  ranks  of  the  brute  creation ;  but 
religion,  which  is  neither  merely  opinion  nor  disposition, 
but  the  heart  of  the  inner  man,  and  therefore  the  ground- 
work of  the  rest.  In  the  middle  ages,  so  dark  for  other 
knowledge,  religion,  like  the  sky  at  night,  hung  nearer  to 
the  earth,  and  extended  brightly  over  it;  whereas,  to 
us,  God,  like  the  sun  in  the  daytime,  seems  only  like 
the  keystone  of  the  arch  of  heaven.  The  old  chronicler 
introduces  bloody  rain,  —  monsters,  —  fights  of  birds, — 
children's  games,  —  flights  of  locusts,  —  yes,  even  sudden 
deaths,  —  among  the  great  events  of  the  world,  as  impor- 
tant signs,  as  the  smoke-clouds  of  an  impending  war; 
and  war,  a  still  more  important  sign,  had,  as  a  judgment 
upon  sin,  its  heavenly  as  well  as  its  earthly  origin.  At 
the  same  time  this  parallelism,  or  rather  predetermined 
harmony  between  earth  and  heaven,  was  at  least  more 
consistent  than  the  new^  physical  influence  which  allows 
not  the  day-watch  of  one  man,  but  the  thousand-yeared 
watch  of  the  history  of  the  world  to  be  fixed  by  a  God, 
resembling  a  theatrical  one,  only  that  he  is  not  a  mock 
sun,  but  a  real  sun ;  as  if  the  difference  between  the 
earthly  and  the  heavenly  rested  only  on  degrees  of  great- 
ness ;  and  as  if  the  admission  or  exclusion  of  the  Infinite 
did  not  equally  apply  to  the  whole  of  the  finite  universe, 
and  to  its  smallest  part. 

He  who  possesses  religion  finds  a  providence  not  more 
truly  in  the  history  of  the  world  than  in  his  own  family 
history :  the  rainbow,  which  hangs  a  glittering  circle  in 
the  heights  of  heaven,  is  also  formed  by  the  same  sun  in 
the  dew-drop  of  a  lowly  flower.  Tlie  diffident  modesty 
of  present  individuals  who  prefer  leaving   the  care  of 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  59 

themselves  to  blind  fate,  rather  than  to  watchful  prov- 
idence, testifies  less  to  unbelief  and  self-depreciation, 
than  to  the  consciousness  of  not  believing  and  acting 
piously. 

Herder  proves  that  all  nations  have  received  writing 
and  their  earliest  forms  of  civilization  from  the  teachings 
of  religion  ;  but  does  he  not  thereby  prove  something 
further  ?  —  namely,  this :  that  in  nations,  and  conse- 
quently in  men,  the  ideal  is  older  than  the  real  ?  —  that 
so  the  child  is  nearer  the  highest  than  the  lowest,  for  that 
lies  in  him  ;  and  that  we  reckon  time  by  the  stars  and 
the  sun  earlier  than  by  the  town-clock ;  and  that  the 
Godhead,  as  once  in  paradise,  so  now  in  the  desert,  im- 
presses his  image  on  man  before  he  can  discolor  it,  and 
so  afterwards  he  can  never  lose  or  be  without  it  ?  Every- 
thing holy  is  before  what  is  unholy ;  guilt  presupposes 
innocence,  not  the  reverse ;  angels,  but  not  fallen  ones, 
were  created.  Hence  man  does  not  properly  rise  to  the 
highest,  but  first  sinks  gradually  down  from  it,  and  then 
afterwards  rises  again :  a  child  can  never  be  considered 
too  innocent  and  good.  It  is  thus  that  the  Infinite  Being 
appears  to  nations  and  individuals  earlier  than  the  finite, 
yea,  than  infinite  space  ;  as  the  almighty  power  of  young 
nature  produced,  according  to  Schelling,  the  fixed  suns 
earlier  than  the  worlds  which  roll  round  them.  If  a 
whole  system  of  religious  metaphysics  did  not  dreamingly 
sleep  within  the  child,  how  could  the  mental  contempla- 
tion of  infinity,  God,  eternity,  holiness,  &c.,  be  imparted 
to  him,  since  we  cannot  communicate  it  by  outward 
means,  and  indeed  have  nothing  for  that  purpose  but 
words,  which  have  not  the  power  of  creating,  but  only  of 
arousing?  The  dying  and  the  fainting  hear  inward 
music  which  no  outward  object  gives ;    and   ideas   are 


6o  LEVANA. 

such  inward  tones.*  In  general  even  the  questions,  that 
is,  the  objects  of  proper  metaphysics,  are  among  children, 
as  among  the  uneducated  classes,  much  more  active  and 
common  than  one  supposes,  only  under  different  names ; 
and  the  four-year-old  child  will  ask  what  lies  behind  the 
curtains  of  the  hidden  world,  whence  is  the  origin  of 
God,  &c.  For  instance,  in  children  talking  together, 
the  author  heard  his  five-year-old  boy  philosophize  and 
say,  "  God  has  made  everything,  so  if  one  offers  him 
anything  he  has  made  it "  ;  whereupon  his  four-year-old 
sister  said,  "  He  makes  nothing  "  ;  and  he  answered,  "  He 
makes  nothing,  because  he  has  made  it."  Again ;  the 
seven-year-old  sister  maintained,  if  the  soul  in  the  head 
had  another  set  of  arras,  legs,  and  a  head,  another  soul 
must  dwell  in  that,  and  this  again  would  have  a  head, 
and  so  on  forever.f 

If  Rousseau  gives  up  God,  and  consequently  religion, 
as  the  late  inheritance  of  a  matured  age,  he  can,  except 
in  the  case  of  great  souls,  expect  no  more  religious  inspi- 
ration and  love  than  a  Parisian  father,  who,  after  the 
fashion  of  some  nations,  never  sees  his  son  till  he  no 
longer  needs  a  father,  can  expect  filial  affection. J  When, 
indeed,  could  the  most  holy  take  deeper  root  than  in  the 
most  holy  age  of  innocence,  or  that  which  shall  have 
eternal  influence,  than  in  the  age  which  never  forgets? 

*  So  the  fear  of  ghosts,  this  unceasing  dread,  which  without  any- 
outward  cause  —  by  that  only  corporeal  fear  is  produced  —  obtains 
the  mastery,  and  makes  men  stiff  and  cold. 

t  While  writing  this,  the  above-mentioned  four,  now  six-yeai'-old 
child  said,  number  has  a  one  and  begins,  and  what  begins  must  also 
end.  At  last  she  showed  me  a  stick,  and  asked,  whether  it  did  not 
end  on  all  sides. 

X  At  least,  Mercier  says,  that  the  ftishionable  Parisians,  even  the 
women,  do  not  see  their  children,  who  are  brought  up  in  the  country, 
until  they  are  fully  grown. 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  6l 

Not  the  clouds  of  the  fore  or  afternoon,  but  the  overcast 
or  blue  sky  of  the  morning,  decides  upon  the  fairness  of 
the  day. 

But  as  the  first  rule  to  be  observed  by  any  one  who 
will  give  something  is,  that  he  must  himself  have  it ;  so 
it  is  true,  that  no  one  can  teach  religion  who  has  it  not : 
mature  hypocrisy,  or  hp-religion,  can  beget  nothing  but 
immature  ;  such  a  mock  sun  can  neither  warm  nor  give 
light,  and  an  acoustic  deception  returns  every  optic  one. 
He  who  has  no  God  in  heaven,  and  in  his  own  heart,  can 
without  immorality  believe  himself  bound  by  no  morality 
(though  perhaps  for  the  sake  of  utility)  to  implant  in  his 
children  a  nothing,  which  he  has  already  torn  from  him- 
self, and  which  he  afterwards  intends  to  eradicate  from 
them.  But,  properly,  neither  belief  in  the  morality  of  a 
religious  lie,  nor  in  its  political  advantages,  sows  deceit  in 
the  trusting  open  heart  of  childhood  ;  that  is  only  done 
by  the  selfish  weakness  which  willingly  makes  terms  at 
once  with  God  and  the  Devil :  that  argumentum  a  tuto  (a 
keeping  open  of  a  back-door  into  heaven,  worthy,  but 
for  its  wounding  of  reason  and  morality,  of  a  very  oppo- 
site name)  does  not  rank,  thank  God  !  among  the  sins  of 
our  age. 

The  younger  a  child  is,  the  less  let  him  hear  the 
Unspeakable  named,  who  only  by  a  word  becomes  to 
him  the  speakable :  but  let  him  behold  his  symbols. 
The  sublime  is  the  temple-step  of  religion,  as  the  stars 
are  of  immeasurable  space.  When  what  is  mighty 
appears  in  nature,  —  a  storm,  thunder,  the  starry  firma- 
ment, death,  —  then  utter  the  word  God  before  the 
child.  A  great  misfortune,  a  great  blessing,  a  great 
crime,  a  noble  action,  are  building-sites  for  a  child's 
church. 


62  LEVANA. 

Show  everywhere  to  the  child,  as  well  as  on  the  bor- 
ders of  the  holy  land  of  religion,  devotional  and  holy 
sentiments  ;  these  pass  over,  and  at  last  unveil  for  him 
the  object ;  just  as  if  you  are  alarmed  he  is  so  too,  with- 
out knowing  why.  Newton,  who  uncovered  his  head 
when  the  greatest  name  was  uttered,  would  have  been 
without  saying  a  word,  a  teacher  of  religion  to  children. 
Not  with  them,  but  only  before  them,  should  you  pray 
your  own  prayers,  that  is,  think  aloud  of  God  ;  but  their 
own  you  should  pray  with  them.  A  stated  exaltation  and 
emotion  is  a  desecrated  one.  The  prayers  of  children 
are  empty  and  cold,  and  are  in  fact  only  remains  of  the 
Jewish- Christian  belief  in  sacrifices,  which  will  reconcile 
and  win  the  favor  of  God  by  means  of  innocent  beings, 
not  of  innocence  ;  and  the  child  secretly  regards  the  God, 
whom  you  give  him  by  word  of  mouth,  as  the  Kamt- 
schatkadale  and  every  savage  does  his.  A  grace  before 
meat  must  make  every  child  deceitful.  As  he  grows 
older,  let  a  day  of  prayer,  or  of  any  religious  observances 
become  more  rare,  but  on  that  account  more  solemn  ; 
what  the  first  affecting  Lord's  Supper  is  to  the  child,  that 
let  every  hour  be  in  which  you  consecrate  his  heart  to 
religion.  Let  children  go  to  church  but  rarely,  for  you 
might  as  well  take  them  to  hear  an  oratorio  of  Klopstock 
or  of  Handel,  as  that  of  the  church ;  but  when  you  do 
take  them,  impress  on  them  the  value  of  a  sympathy  with 
the  devotional  sentiments  of  their  parents.  Indeed,  I 
would  rather  —  since  as  yet  there  is  no  special  public 
worship  of  God,  and  no  special  preachers  for  children  — 
you  should  lead  them  on  the  great  days  of  the  seasons,  or 
of  human  life,  merely  into  the  empty  temple,  and  show 
them  the  holy  place  of  their  elders.  If  you  add  to  that 
twiUght,  night,  the  organ,  singing,  a  father's  preaching, 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  63 

you  will  at  least  leave  behind  on  the  young  heart  more 
religions  consecration  by  that  one  church-going,  than  you 
could  on  an  old  one  by  a  whole  year  of  church-attending. 
After  these  considerations  it  makes  one's  heart  ache  to 
think  of  that  already  nearly  abandoned  custom,  which 
some,  however,  kindly  wish  back,  I  mean  that  of  setting 
the  children  and  young  people  to  take  down  the  sermon, 
at  least  an  outUne  of  it,  in  church,  and  afterwards  to 
write  it  out  fully  at  home  or  at  school.  Although  this 
nearly  borders  on  jest,  we  will  ask  in  earnest,  whether 
this  must  not  convert  the  religious  sincerity  of  fellow- 
feeling  into  a  mere  anatomy  and  skeleton,  and  draw  down 
the  holy,  and  the  aim  of  the  heart,  into  a  means  of  exer- 
cising the  understanding,  and  hold  every  emotion  at  a 
distance,  because  feeling  might  hinder  writing  ?  It  were, 
perhaps,  something  about  as  good,  if  a  young  woman 
made  a  short  pragmatic  abstract  of  her  lover's  declaration 
of  love ;  or  a  soldier,  of  the  fiery  speech  of  his  leader 
before  battle ;  or  an  evangelist,  a  neat  exposition  of 
Christ's  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  with  all  its  subdivisions. 
When  teachers  thus  convert  all  the  highest  ends  into  new 
means  and  ways,  that  is  to  say  backways,  do  they  not 
spiritually  use  spiritual  things,  as  the  modem  Romans 
really  do  triumphal  arches  and  temples  of  Jupiter,  which 
they  degrade  into  wash-houses  ? 

For  the  poor  children  of  the  people,  whose  parents  are 
still  pupils  of  the  Sunday,  and  for  whom,  as  a  set-off  to 
the  deep  desert  of  the  week,  a  raising  hand  must  not  fail 
to  lift  them  out  of  their  low  cloudy  heaven,  is  a  public 
church  service  more  necessary  than  for  the  children  of 
the  upper  classes.  The  church  walls,  the  pulpit,  the  or- 
gan, are  to  them  symbols  of  the  Divine  ;  and  as  a  symbol 
it  is  indifferent  whether  it  be  the  village  church  or  the 


64  LEVANA. 

temple  of  nature.  And  do  we  ourselves  know  where,  or 
if  ever,  the  Unsearchable  can  terminate  the  ascending 
scale  of  his  symbols  ?  Does  not  the  higher  spirit  require 
again  a  higher  symbol? 

Let  the  eye  of  the  pupil,  even  where  he  only  sees  outer 
walls  and  forms,  yet  everywhere  gaze  into  the  Holy  of 
Holies  of  religion,  which  the  church-goer  must  bring  with 
him  into  the  Church  as  the  temple-court  of  the  heart.  Let 
every  foreign  exercise  of  religion,  and  every  outward 
preparation  for  it,  be  as  holy  to  him  as  his  own.  Let  the 
Protestant  child  hold  the  Catholic  saints'  images  by  the 
roadside  to  be  as  worthy  of  reverence  as  the  ancient 
oak-forests  of  his  forefathers ;  let  him  receive  different 
religions  as  lovingly  as  different  languages,  in  which  but 
one  spirit  of  humanity  is  expressed.  Every  genius  is 
all-powerful  in  his  own  language,  every  heart  in  its  own 
rehgion. 

But  let  not  fear  create  the  God  of  childhood ;  fear  was 
itself  created  by  a  wicked  spirit ;  shall  the  Devil  become 
the  grandfather  of  God  ? 

He  who  seeks  something  higher  in  its  own  nature,  not 
merely  in  degree,  than  what  Hfe  can  give  or  take  away, 
that  man  has  religion,  though  he  only  believes  in  infinity, 
not  in  the  Infinite,  only  in  eternity,  without  an  Eternal ; 
as  if,  in  opposition  to  other  artists,  he  did  not  paint  the  sun 
with  a  human  countenance,  but  rounded  off  this  to  resem- 
ble the  former.  For  he  who  regards  all  life  as  holy  and 
wonderful,  whether  it  dwell  in  animals,  or,  still  lower,  in 
plants,  —  he  who,  like  Spinoza,  by  means  of  his  noble  soul, 
floats,  and  rests  less  upon  steps  and  heights  than  upon 
wings,  whence  the  surrounding  universe  —  the  stationary, 
and  that  moving  by  law  —  changes  into  one  immense 
light,  life,  and  being,  and  surrounds  him,  so  that  he  feels 


RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION.  65 

absorbed  in  the  great  light,  and  wishes  to  be  nothing 
but  a  ray  in  the  immeasurable  splendor,  —  such  a  man 
has,  and  consequently  imparts,  religion  ;  since  the  highest 
ever  reflects  and  paints  the  highest,  even  though  formless, 
behind  the  eye. 

True  unbelief  relates  to  no  individual  propositions,  or 
counter-propositions,  but  to  blindness  towards  the  whole. 
Excite  in  the  child  the  all-powerful  perception  of  the 
whole,  in  opposition  to  the  selfish  perception  of  the  parts, 
and  then  you  raise  the  man  above  the  world,  the  eternal 
above  the  transitory.  Place  in  the  child's  hand  our 
religious  book  ;  but  do  not  give  the  explanation  after,  but 
before  the  reading,  so  that  the  strange  form  may  enter  the 
young  soul  as  something  entire.  Why  should  misunder- 
standing be  the  precursor  of  understanding  ?  Without 
wonder  there  is  no  faith  ;  and  the  belief  in  the  marvellous 
is  itself  an  inward  faith.  You  must  impart  a  sunbeam  of 
its  origin  to  everything  great  which  comes  before  you,  — 
to  genius,  to  love,  to  every  power ;  only  things  weak  and 
curved  consist  of  steps,  stairs,  and  torture-ladders ;  the 
true  ladder  of  heaven  has  no  steps.  At  least  two  miracles 
or  revelations  remain  for  you  uncontested  in  this  age, 
which  deadens  sound  with  unreverberating  materials ; 
they  resemble  an  Old  and  a  New  Testament,  and  are 
these,  —  the  birth  of  finite  being,  and  the  birth  of  life 
within  the  hard  wood  of  matter.  For  in  one  inexplicable 
thing  every  other  is  involved,  and  one  miracle  annihilates 
the  whole  philosophy.  Cont^equently,  you  do  not  act  the 
part  of  a  hypocrite  when  you  permit  the  child  to  draw 
anything  out  of  the  book  of  religion,  or  the  secret  book  of 
nature,  which  you  cannot  explain.  Living  religion  grows 
not  by  the  doctrines,  but  by  the  narratives,  of  the  Bible  : 
the  best  Christian  religious  doctrine  is  the  life  of  Christ ; 


66  LEVANA. 

and  after  that,  the  sufferings  and  deaths  of  his  followers, 
even  those  not  related  in  Holy  Writ. 

In  the  fair  spring-time  of  the  religious  admission  of  the 
child  among  his  elders,  —  an  important  one,  since  then 
first  he  comes  publicly  before  the  altar,  and  acts  with  all 
the  rights  of  an  independent  being,  —  in  this  never-recur- 
ring time,  when  the  dawn  of  life  suddenly  breaks  into 
the  morning  red,  and  thereby  announces  the  newness  of 
love  and  of  nature,  —  there  is  no  better  priest  to  lead  and 
accompany  the  young  soul,  with  dancing  and  great  joy,  to 
the  high  altar  of  religion,  than  the  poet,  who  annihilates  a 
moi*tal  world  to  build  on  it  an  immortal ;  so  that  our  life 
on  earth  may  resemble  those  polar  lands,  which,  so  void 
of  animals  and  flowers,  so  cold  and  colorless,  yet,  after 
sunless  days,  display  rich  nights,  in  which  heaven  pours 
down  its  gifts  upon  the  earth,  and  where  the  northern  or 
polar  lights  fill  the  whole  blue  with  fire  colors,  jewels, 
thunder,  splendid  tropical  storms,  and  remind  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  cold  earth  of  that  which  lives  above  them. 


THIRD    FRAGMENT, 


Chap.  I.  Digression  upon  the  beginning  of  Man  and  of  Education, 
§§  39  - 42.  —  Chap.  II.  Joyousness  of  Children,  §§  43  -  45.  —  Chap. 
m.  Their  Games,  §§  46  -  54.  —  Chap.  IV.  Their  Dances,  §§  55  - 
57.  —  Chap.  V.  Music,  §§  58  -  60.  —  Chap.  VI.  Commanding,  For- 
bidding, §§  61  -  63.  —  Chap.  VII,  Punishments,  §§  64,  65.  —  Chap. 
VIII.  Passionate  Crjang  of  Children,  §§  66-70.  —  Chap.  IX.  On 
the  Trustfulness  of  Children,  H  71,  72. 


CHAPTER    I 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    EDUCATION. 


§39. 

HEN  does  education  begin  its  work  ?  With  the 
first  breath  of  the  child.  The  light  of  the  soul, 
which  we  call  life,  issuing  from  I  know  not 
what  sunny  cloud,  strikes  upon  the  bodily 
world,  and  moulds  the  rough  mass  into  its  dwelHng-place, 
which  glows  on  until  death,  by  the  nearness  of  another 
world,  allures  it  still  further  on.  In  this  first  moment  — 
for,  if  time  be  elsewhere,  yet  his  pulse  then  beats  the  first 
second  —  is  the  invisible  beam  of  individual  existence 
broken  into  the  colored  spectrum  of  his  bodily  appearance . 
the  dispositions,  the  sex,  yes,  even  the  resemblance  to  the 
father's  and  mother's  countenances,  are  distinguished  by 
yet  unseen  lines.  For  this  distinct  organization  of  a  state 
within  the  social  state  cannot  form  itself  by  degrees  like 


68  LEVANA. 

the  individual  parts  which  it  governs  ;  thus,  the  forming 
influence,  which  moulds  the  transparent  child's  face  like 
its  father's  or  its  grandfather's,  cannot  lie  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  mother,  but  must  exist  in  the  child  itself. 

The  two  life-chains  of  the  parents  are  somewhat  differ- 
ent, especially  the  last  link,  from  which  the  spark  of  the 
new  man  issued  in  order  to  animate  the  physical  clod  of 
earth  into  an  Adam.  When  one  considers  how  little  has 
yet  been  done  for  the  races  of  the  coming  world  (except 
in  the  cases  of  horses,  sheep,  and  canary-birds),  not  even 
observations,  to  say  nothing  of  institutions,  merely  for  a 
cradle  rather  than  for  the  child  in  the  cradle  ;  —  how  the 
connections  of  the  sexes,  of  years,  of  months,  of  hours,  are 
so  lawlessly  and  carelessly  forgotten  and  injured,  when 
the  foundation-stones  of  centuries  are  laid  ;  —  how  here 
the  giddy,  sensual  man  requires  more  laws  than  the  un- 
changing beast  which  moves  straight  on  in  the  leading- 
strings  of  instinct  and  of  health,  —  and  how  the  world  be- 
comes continually  more  clamorous  in  desire,  more  indif- 
ferent to  wisdom  ;  one  must,  from  a  carelessness  for 
moral  requisitions,  which  contents  itself  only  with  the 
bare  fulfilment  of  the  ten  commandments  for  rufiians, 
finally  come  to  the  conclusion,  that  men  seek  to  settle 
with  morality  as  with  a  creditor.  And  may  not  a  state, 
like  an  elder,  prescribe  for  all,  with  its  cold,  ever-during 
hand,  laws  which  a  loving  individual  would  never  have 
thought  of  making,  and  yet  is  obliged  to  obey  ;  just  as  the 
law-book,  not  a  pair  of  lovers,  contemplates  divorce  ? 

For  the  rest,  we  may  well  venture  to  complain  that 
Nature,  during  the  "twelve  holy  nights"  in  which,  as 
creatress,  she  wanders  alone  with  her  youngest  creatures, 
makes  it  too  difficult  even  for  the  conscientious  not  to 
steal  and  murder  in  the  dark.     At  every  step  down  the 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    EDUCATION.  69 

deep,  gloomy  ladder  of  futurity  up  which  men  and  ages 
ascend,  conscience  calls,  "  Here  is  a  man,  there  perhaps  a 
genius,  the  heaven  of  his  people " ;  but  we,  hke  night- 
wanderers,  must  spare  the  known,  and  injure  the  un- 
known. 

Since  parents  play  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  history 
of  the  creation  of  the  child's  body,  one  can  with  difficulty 
refrain  from  the  question,  how  much  they  contribute  to 
the  theogony  (divine  generation)  of  the  child's  spirit  ?  If 
we  must  think  of  a  dark  problem,  it  is  also  permitted,  nay 
necessary,  for  us  to  think  of  some  solution.  The  mental 
dissimilarity  of  dispositions  is  a  mere  product  of  bodily 
differences,  since  both  mutually  presuppose  each  other. 
It  is,  indeed,  easier  for  us  to  apprehend  difference  in 
bodies  than  in  minds  ;  but,  properly,  there  is  only  an 
apparent  difference  of  quantity  visible  in  those,  and  only 
a  real  one  of  quality  in  these  ;  so  it  is  only  minds  which 
grow  or  inure  themselves  to  anything.  If  it  will  not  be 
admitted  that  that  spark  of  distinguishing  individuaUty 
flies  down  from  the  stars  in  clouds  during  conception,  it 
must  then  either,  precisely  in  the  moment  of  inducting  its 
human  covering,  cast  off  a  previous  covering  spun  from 
the  father's  or  the  mother's  life,  or  it  was,  like  thought  and 
motion,  born  of  soul.  Creation  of  spirits  is  not  more  diffi- 
cult to  comprehend  than  creation  of  thoughts  by  spirits,  or 
than  any  other  change.  In  both  cases,  especially  in  the 
second,  not  o^ly  does  the  bodily  life  of  the  parents  cradle 
the  bodies  of  the  future,  but  also  their  spiritual  life  its 
spirits.  But,  then,  with  what  trembling  should  this  bal- 
ance be  held  !  If  thou  knewest  that  every  black  thought 
of  thine,  or  every  glorious,  independent  one,  separated 
itself  from  thy  soul,  and  took  root  without  thee,  and  for 
half  a  century  pushed  and  bore  its  poisonous  flowers  or 


70  LEVANA. 

healing  roots,  O  how  piously  wouldest  thou  choose  and 

think !  —  And   dost   thou,   then,  so  certainly   know  the 

reverse  ? 

§40. 

I  come  back  to  my  own  opinion,  that  spiritual  education 
begins  at  birth ;  for  up  to  that  period  the  mother  —  as 
often  afterwards  in  a  worse  sense  —  has  only  a  blood  rela- 
tionship, not  a  nerve  relationship,  with  the  child  sleeping 
at  the  gates  of  the  world.  So  that  all  that  is  false  which 
has  been  said  about  an  electric  charging  chain  to  which 
the  little  invisible  is  attached,  and  by  which  he  is  charged 
with  the  streams  and  sparks  of  the  maternal  passions  and 
feelings.  Since,  according  to  the  best  anatomists,  the 
mother  does  not  nourish  the  child  with  her  blood  directly, 
but  through  media,  the  maternal  passions  which  are  to 
affect  it  through  the  blood  can  only  work  in  two  ways, 
either  by  mechanical  change,  slow  or  quick,  or  by  chemi- 
cal change,  oxidized  or  unoxidized.  The  embryo  soul 
does  not  partake  of  the  mechanical  change  ;  because  the 
mother's  blood  can  move  as  fast  in  the  ball-room  of  love 
as  in  the  servants'-hall  of  anger ;  or  creep  as  slowly  when 
sitting  full  of  hope  before  the  embroidery-frame,  as  of 
despair  before  a  bier.  The  chemical  change  of  the  blood 
by  passion,  or  other  external  excitement,  is  itself,  in  the 
first  instance,  a  product  of  the  mind  and  of  the  nerves 
which  serve  it  either  mediately  or  immediately.  The 
intoxication  of  the  nerves  gives  the  full  beat  of  the  pulse, 
but  not  so  the  reverse ;  else  the  excitement  of  a  race  would 
have  as  complete  an  effect  as  a  drink  has  upon  thirst. 
How  the  oxidized  or  unoxidized  blood  of  the  mother  can 
more  affect  the  child's  mind  than  her  own,  must  arise 
from  the  influence  of  the  blood  as  nourishment ;  and  as 
the  blood,  before  it  is  capable  of  affording  nourishment, 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    EDUCATION.  71 

must  be  assimilated  by  the  little  foreign  body,  it  can  pos- 
sess no  influence  different  to  that  of  every  other  nourish- 
ment :  and,  in  nourishing,  as  little  propagates  its  differences 
as  does  the  blood  of  sheep  or  of  lions.  The  objections 
made  by  nurses  go  far  in  justification  of  this. 

The  clearest  proof  that  mothers  have  no  influence  on 
the  mental  development  of  the  embryotic  human  being  is 
given  in  the  varied  characters  of  the  children  in  the  same 
family ;  and  even  more  especially  in  the  cases  of  twins, 
where  the  prenatal  conditions  must  have  been  precisely 
the  same.  Neither  tell  me,  that  the  beautiful  Madonna 
faces  seen  in  Catholic  countries  are  to  be  regarded  as 
copies  of  those  painted  in  the  churches  ;  for  I  reply,  that 
the  paintings  presuppose  lovely  countenances,  and  not 
these  the  paintings. 

At  the  same  time,  the  disbelief  that  the  mother  decides 
on  the  mental  and  physical  form  of  her  child  leaves  room 
for  the  true  belief  that  her  health  or  sickness  is  repeated 
in  the  little  second  being :  and  it  is  for  this  very  reason 
that  superstitious  fancies  about  marks,  misbirths,  and 
similar  things  ought  to  be  so  much  guarded  against ;  not 
because  what  is  dreaded  brings  its  fulfilment,  but  because 
it,  along  with  those  evils  which  are  produced  by.  alarm 
before  a  thing  occurs,  and  undue  anxiety  after  it  has  hap- 
pened, weakens  the  body,  and  brings  for  the  sufferer  years 
of  trouble. 

§41. 

At  last  the  child  can  say  to  the  father.  Educate,  for  I 
breathe.  The  first  breath,  like  the  last,  closes  an  old  with 
a  new  world.  The  new  is,  in  this  case,  the  world  of  light 
and  colors  ;  the  life  on  earth,  like  a  painter,  begins  with 
the  eye.  The  ear,  indeed,  preceded  it,  —  so  that  it  is  the 
first  sense  of  the  living  as  it  is  the  last  of  the  dying,  —  but 


72  LEVANA. 

then  it  belonged  to  the  reahn  of  feeling  ;  and  it  is  on  this 
account  that  birds  in  the  egg,  and  soft,  many-punctured 
silk-worms,  die  from  a  loud  report.  The  first  sound  falls 
with  a  darker  chaos  on  the  closely  covered  soul  than  the 
first  beam  of  light.  So  the  morning  of  life  opens  on  the 
freed  prisoner  with  the  two  senses  imparting  knowledge 
of  distance,  like  the  morning  of  the  day  with  light  and 
song  or  bustle.  At  the  same  time,  light  continues  to  be 
the  first  enamel  of  the  earth,  the  first  fair  word  of  life. 
The  cry  which  breaks  upon  the  slumbering  ear  may  be 
strong,  but  it  arouses  none  but  the  mother,  except  the 
child;  and  so  the  world  of  sound  begins  with  a  discord, 
but  the  world  of  sight  with  beauty  and  glory. 

Every  first  thing  continues  forever  with  the  child :  the 
first  polor,  the  first  music,  the  first  flower,  paint  the  fore- 
ground of  his  life;  yet  we  can  prescribe  no  other  law  than 
this,  protect  the  child  from  all  that  is  impetuous  and  vio- 
lent, and  even  from  sweet  impressions.  Nature,  so  soft, 
defenceless,  and  excitable,  may  be  distorted  by  one  error, 
and  hardened  into  a  growing  deformity.  For  this  reason 
the  crying  of  children,  if  composed  of  a  union  of  discord, 
hastiness,  imperiousness,  and  passion,  ought  to  be  guarded 
against  by  all  due  means,  but  not  by  effeminacy,  which 
only  increases  it. 

§42. 

If  in  the  ocean  of  a  human  soul,  sections  may  be  made, 
and  degrees  of  longitude  and  latitude  ascribed  to  it,  we 
must,  in  the  case  of  a  child,  make  the  first  section  of  the 
first  three  years,  during  which,  from  the  want  of  the  power 
of  speech,  he  still  lives  in  the  animal  cloister,  and  only 
approaches  us  through  the  speech-grating  of  natural  signs. 
In  this  speechless  period,  of  which  we  shall  now  treat,  the 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    EDUCATION.  73 

pupils  are  quite  given  up  to  feminine  fluency ;  but  how 
women  ought  now  to  educate  can  only  be  seen  later  on, 
when  we  inquire  how  they  themselves  ought  to  have  been 
educated.  In  this  period  of  twilight,  in  this  first  moon's 
quarter,  or  eighth  of  life,  let  the  light  only  grow  of  itself, 
do  not  kindle  it.  Here  the  sexes  are  unseparated,  neither 
divided  by  the  Platonic  Aristophanes,  nor  by  the  tailor. 
The  whole  human  being  is  as  yet  a  closed  bud,  whose 
blossom  is  concealed.  Like  the  eggs  of  birds,  whether  of 
song  or  of  prey,  and  like  the  new-born  young  of  the  dove 
or  of  the  vulture,  all  at  first  require  warmth,  not  nourish- 
ment, which  might  have  a  very  different  effect. 

And  what,  then,  is  warmth  for  the  human  chicken  ?  — 
Happiness.  One  has  but  to  give  them  play-room,  by 
taking  away  what  may  be  painful,  and  their  powers  shoot 
up  of  themselves.  The  new  world  which  the  suckling 
brings  with  him,  and  the  new  one  which  he  finds  around 
him,  enfold  him  as  learning,  or  develop  themselves  as 
knowledge  ;  and  neither  worlds  yet  require  the  ploughing 
or  sowing  of  stranger  hands.  Even  the  artificial  g}'mnas- 
tics  of  the  senses,  which  will  teach  a  year-old  child  to  see 
and  hear  and  hold,  are  not  much  more  necessary  than  the 
leading-strings  which  show  him  how  to  walk;  and  can  the 
advantage  of  teaching  some  use  of  the  senses,  say  in  three 
months,  which  would  have  come  of  itself  in  four,  be  a  rec- 
ompense for  neglecting  and  wearying  one's  self  in  the  first 
year  and  with  the  first  child,  to  the  injury  of  after  years 
and  the  next  children,  about  something  which  uncon- 
strained life  necessitates  in  savages  and  country  people  ? 

The  excellent  Schwarz,  in  his  Treatise  on  Education, 
prompts,  by  his  proposition  of  an  early  gymnasium  for  all 
the  senses,  to  an  appendix  to  this  paragraph.  As  to  the 
material  advantage  of  these  school  classes  for  the  five 

4 


74  LEVANA. 

senses,  it  is  certain  that  rich,  varied  life,  by  its  unceasing 
influence,  educates  and  practises  the  senses  with  a  power 
which  does  not  require  the  poverty  of  particular  institu- 
tions for  practice,  except  you  wish  to  convert  the  whole 
child  into  one  single  sense,  —  into  a  painter's  eye  or  a 
musician's  ear. 

On  the  other  hand,  these  practices  have  a  formal  utility 
in  constraining  the  mind  to  perceive  the  finer  subdivisions 
of  its  sensations,  and  to  measure  the  world  more  accu- 
rately by  lines  than  by  yards.  In  the  mean  time,  the 
inner  world  offers  itself  to  a  finer  and  higher  school  than 
the  outward.  Especially  leave  out  all  exercises  of  the 
sense  of  taste,  for  whose  haut  gout  the  kitchen  is  the  best 
school ;  since  we  do  not  need  by  its  means  to  distinguish 
between  nourishment  and  poison,  but  rather  teach  by  its 
exercise  at  rich  tables  to  confound  the  two,  so  that  we, 
unlike  the  beasts,  who  only  when  young,  from  unpractised 
taste,  crop  injurious  weeds,  when  old,  from  refined  taste, 
long  for  poison  dishes  and  poison  goblets. 

Let  there  be  here  not  so  much  a  £?^-gression  as  a  pre- 
gression  concerning  the  order  of  development  of  the 
senses.  Schwarz,  in  his  Treatise  on  Education,  assigns 
too  late  a  birthtime,  almost  beyond  the  age  of  childhood, 
for  the  senses  of  taste  and  smell.  He  seems,  however,  to 
confound  the  refinement  of  these  senses,  which  no  doubt 
takes  place  in  mature  age,  with  their  existence  and  power, 
which  certainly  flourish  in  their  greatest  strength  during 
childhood.  Every  one  may  remember  how,  as  a  child, 
like  the  animals  (which  remain  stationary  on  this  first 
step),  and  Uke  savages,  he  imbibed  everything  tasty, 
fruits,  sugar,  sweet  wine,  fat,  with  a  delight  and  enjoy- 
ment which  weakened  with  every  year  of  the  subsequent 
refinement  of  the  sense;    hence  the  so  much  lamented 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    EDUCATION.  75 

love  of  sweetmeats  in  all  children  ;  hence  the  experience 
of  so  many  grown-up  people,  who  have  had  the  favorite 
dishes  of  their  childhood  cooked  for  them,  that  they  did 
not  like  them.  Infants  no  doubt  take  bitter  medicines 
without  resistance ;  but  this  is  no  reproach  to  their  taste ; 
we  ourselves  in  later  life  seek  a  pure  bitter  as  a  higher 
excitement,  in  bitter  beer,  water,  and  almonds.  If  a 
young  animal  eats  poisonous  plants  which  an  old  one 
avoids,  there  is  proved  by  this  less  want  of  taste  than  su- 
perabundance of  appetite,  that  is,  hunger;  which  in  it 
as  easily  conquers  instinct  as  in  us  it  unfortunately  over- 
comes reason. 

Smell,  the  dulness  of  which  sense  speaks  as  little  in 
favor  of  mental  delicacy  as  that  of  the  eye  or  of  the  ear 
does  against  it,  awakes  with  consciousness,  consequently, 
last  in  a  child.  We  are  less  awai'e  of  its  advent,  because 
it  subserves  few  necessities,  and  because  its  continuance, 
either,  for  instance,  in  spice  islands,  or  in  Augean  sta- 
ble-like streets,  renders  the  consciousness  of  it  difficult. 
Children  have  little  scent-glands  for  the  persons  nearest 
them,  for  instance,  for  their  parents,  and  thereby  dis- 
tinguish them  from  individuals  more  rarely  seen.  And 
it  is  precisely  smell  which  dies  away  the  first  of  all  the 
senses ;  although  it,  unlike  the  other  senses,  is  seldom 
worn  out  by  too  powerful  stimulants.  And  who  is  there 
who  has  not  experienced  in  himself —  what  I  have  done 
—  that  often  a  nosegay  of  wild  flowers,  which  was  to  us, 
as  village  children,  a  grove  of  pleasure,  hasj  in  after 
years  of  manhood,  and  in  the  town,  given  us  by  its  old 
perfume  an  indescribable  transport  back  into  godlike 
childhood ;  and  how,  like  a  flower-goddess,  it  has  raised 
us  into  the  first  embracing  Aurora  clouds  of  our  first  dim 
feelings?    But  how  could  such  a  remembrance  so  strongly 


76  LEVANA. 

affect  us  if  our  childish  sensibiUty  to  flowers  had  not 
been  so  strong  and  heartfelt  ?  Ascribe,  then,  to  after  life 
nothing  mere  than  the  refinement  of  a  deeply  implanted 
feehnff. 


CHAPTER   II. 


s 


THE    JOyOUSNESS    OF   CHILDREN. 

§43. 

HOULD  they  have  anything  else  ?  I  can  endure  a 
melancholy  man,  but  not  a  melancholy  child;  the 
former,  in  whatever  slough  he  may  sink,  can  yet  raise  his 
eyes  either  to  the  kingdom  of  reason  or  of  hope  ;  but  the 
little  child  is  entirely  absorbed  and  weighed  down  by  one 
black  poison-drop  of  the  present.  Think  of  a  child  led 
to  a  scaffold,  think  of  Cupid  in  a  Dutch  coffin,  or  watch 
a  butterfly,  after  its  four  wings  have  been  torn  off,  creep- 
ing like  a  worm,  and  you  will  feel  what  I  mean. 

But  wherefore?  The  first  cause  has  been  already 
given ;  the  child,  like  the  beast,  only  knows  purest 
(though  shortest)  sorrow ;  one  which  has  no  past  and  no 
future ;  one  such  as  the  sick  man  receives  from  without, 
the  dreamer  from  himself  into  his  asthenic  brain ;  finally, 
one  with  tlae  consciousness  not  of  guilt,  but  of  innocence. 
Certainly  all  the  sorrows  of  children  are  but  shortest 
nights,  as  their  joys  are  but  hottest  days;  and,  indeed, 
both  so  much  so  that  in  the  later,  often  clouded  and 
starless,  time  of  life,  the  matured  man  only  longingly  re- 
members his  old  childhood's   pleasures,  while  he  seems 


JOYOUSNESS  OF  CHILDREN.       77 

altogether  to  have  forgotten  his  childhood's  griefs.  This 
weak  remembrance  is  strangely  contrasted  with  the  op- 
posing one  in  dreams  and  fevers  in  this  respect,  that  in 
the  two  last  it  is  always  the  cruel  sorrows  of  childhood 
which  return:  the  dream,  this  mock  sun  of  childhood, 
and  the  fever,  its  distorting-glass,  both  draw  forth  from 
dark  corners  the  fears  of  defenceless  childhood,  which 
press  and  -cut  with  iron  fangs  into  the  prostrate  soul. 
The  fair  scenes  of  dreams  mostly  play  on  an  after  stage ; 
whereas  the  frightful  ones  choose  for  theirs  the  cradle  and 
the  nursery.  Moreover,  in  fever  the  ice  hands  of  the 
fear  of  ghosts,  the  striking  ones  of  teachers  and  parents, 
and  every  claw  with  which  fate  has  pressed  the  young 
heart,  stretch  themselves  out  to  catch  the  wandering  man. 
Parents  consider,  then,  that  every  childhood's  Rupert,* 
even  though  it  has  lain  chained  for  tens  of  years,  yet 
breaks  loose  and  gains  mastery  over  the  man  so  soon  as 
it  finds  him  on  a  sick-bed.  The  first  fright  is  the  more 
dangerous  the  sooner  it  happens ;  as  the  man  grows  older 
he  is  less  and  less  easily  frightened ;  the  little  cradle  or 
bed  canopy  of  the  child  is  more  easily  quite  darkened 
than  the  starry  heaven  of  the  man. 

§44 

Cheerfulness,  or  joyousness,  is  the  heaven  under  which 
everything  but  poison  thrives.  But  let  it  not  be  con- 
founded with  enjoyments.  Every  enjoyment,  even  the 
refined  one  of  a  work  of  art,  gives  man  a  selfish  mien, 
and  withdraws  him  from  sympathy ;  hence  it  is  only  a 
condition  of  necessity,  not  of  virtue.  On  the  contrary, 
cheerfulness,  the  opposite  of  vexation  and  sadness,  is  at 

*  The  name  given  in  Germany  to  the  fictitious  being  employed  to 
frighten  children  into  obedience. 


78  LEVANA. 

once  the  ground  and  flower  of  virtue  and  its  crown.  Ani- 
mals can  enjoy,  but  only  men  can  be  cheerful.  The  holy 
father  is  at  the  same  time  called  the  blessed,  and  God  is 
the  All-blessed.  A  morose  God  is  a  contradiction,  or  the 
Devil.  The  stoic  philosopher  must  unite  scorn  of  enjoy- 
ment with  the  preservation  of  cheerfulness.  The  Chris- 
tian heaven  promises  no  pleasures,  like  the  Turkish,  but 
the  clear,  pure,  infinite  ether  of  heavenly  joy,  which  flows 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  eternal.  The  foretaste  of 
heaven  —  Paradise,  to  which  the  theologians  denied  pleas- 
ures, but  not  cheerfulness  —  sheltered  innocence.  The 
cheerful  man  wins  our  eye  and  heart,  as  the  morose  man 
drives  both  away :  it  is  the  contrary  with  pleasures ;  we 
turn  our  back  on  the  luxurious,  and  open  our  heart  to 
the  starving.  If  pleasure  be  a  self-consuming  rocket, 
cheerfulness  is  a  returning  light  star,  an  object  which, 
unlike  pleasure,  is  not  worn  away  by  continuance,  but 
receives  from  it  new  birth. 

§45. 

Now  let  us  return  to  the  dear  children.  I  do  indeed 
think  that  they  ought  to  inhabit  their  Paradise  like  our 
first  parents,  those  true  first  children.  But  pleasures 
make  no  Paradise,  they  only  help  to  laugh  it  away. 
Play,  that  is,  activity,  not  pleasures,  will  keep  children 
cheerful.  By  pleasure  I  understand  every  first  agreeable 
impression,  not  only  of  the  taste,  but  also  of  the  ear  and 
the  eye :  a  plaything  gives  in  the  first  place  pleasure  by 
looking  at  it,  and  only  afterwards  cheerfulness  by  using  it. 
Pleasure  is  an  irritating  burning  spot,  not  an  all-embra- 
cing warmth,  on  the  excitable  skin  of  the  child.  Fur- 
ther, if  refined,  perpetual  drunkards  and  epicures  multiply 
and  extend  their  pleasures  by  the  past  and  the  future,  so 


JOYOUSNESS    OF    CHILDREN.  79 

children,  from  want  of  both,  can  only  have  shortest,  but, 
consequently,  deepest  pleasures.  Their  point  of  sight, 
like  their  eye,  is  less  than  ours ;  the  burning-glass  of 
pleasure  should  not  strike  them  at  focal  distance,  but  far 
off  and  gently.  In  other  words,  divide  the  great  pleasure 
into  little  merry-makings,  a  gingerbread  cake  into  ginger- 
bread nuts,  a  Christmas  eve  into  a  Church  year.  In  one 
month  of  nine  and  twenty  days  a  child  might  be  mentally 
destroyed,  if  one  could  make  out  of  every  day  a  first 
Christmas  day.  Not  even  a  grown-up  head  could  stand 
being  crowned  every  day  by  a  new  country  ;  the  first  in 
Paris,  the  second  in  London,  the  third  in  Rome,  the 
fourth  in  Vienna.  But  httle  enjoyments  work  like  scent- 
bottles  on  the  young  souls,  and  strengthen  them  from 
action  to  action. 

Nevertheless,  this  ramification  of  pleasures  only  serves 
for  the  earhest  years :  afterwards,  in  a  reversed  way,  will 
a  Midsummer  feast,  a  grape-gathering,  a  Shrove-tide,  for 
which  children  have  long  to  wait,  together  with  the  glean- 
ings of  a  lively  memory,  shine  all  the  more  brightly  in 
the  dull  interval. 

A  word  about  children's  love  of  sweetmeats,  against 
which  Schwarz  strives,  perhaps  too  eagerly,  may  be 
dropped  here.  I  never  yet  knew  a  child  to  whom  sweet, 
savory  things  and  pastry  did  not  seem  the  most  inimitable 
cakes  and  altar  paintings,  and  this  merely  because  a  child, 
half  animal,  half  savage,  is  all  taste.  Bees  have  at  the 
same  time  a  honey  and  a  wax  stomach ;  but  in  men, 
children  have  the  first,  grown  people  the  second.  If 
Schwarz  has  always  found  love  of  eating  and  want  of 
modesty  united,  he  can  only  declare  this  of  the  age  of 
manhood,  but  even  then  the  love  of  eating  was  only  the 
consequence  and  companion  of  deeper  sensual  pleasures. 


8o  LEVANA. 

not  their  cause.  Certainly,  the  unbridled  sensualist  will 
alter  in  his  meats,  and  also  in  his  tastes,  as  the  lover  of 
eating  does  on  other  grounds ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  how 
can  the  pleasures  of  taste,  which  grow  weaker  as  every 
year  is  further  from  childhood,  end  in  still  lower  sensu- 
alities, especially  since  the  generality  of  souls,  in  regard 
to  love,  resemble  the  Egyptians,  among  whom  the  gods 
reigned  earlier  than  mortal  men  ?  The  fathers  do  not 
hop,  but  the  children  do ;  then  leave  them  their  other 
Egyptian  flesh-pots  before  their  journeying  forth  into  the 
desert.  The  author  has  often  made  the  sugar  island  of 
the  tongue,  on  which  of  itself  no  Paphian  wood  grows, 
into  a  kind  of  palaestra  of  self-denial :  at  the  same  time  he 
relates  the  matter  with  difl&dence,  only  as  a  question,  not 
an  answer.  For  instance,  he  gave  to  the  two  and  three 
year  old  children  candied  marchpane  (the  most  whole- 
some thing),  with  the  command  only  to  suck  it  at  a  certain 
place,  and  only  for  so  long  a  time  as  he  permitted.  The 
children  learned  to  value  and  to  keep  a  promise.  He 
also  offered  sugar  or  honey  prizes  for  the  endurance  of 
the  most  strokes  on  the  hand  ;  but  he  did  it  seldom. 

Most  royal  children  can  shorten  our  inquiries  by  their 
decision.  For,  as  regards  pleasures,  they  have  every- 
thing, from  toys  and  drinking  and  eating  things,  to  car- 
riage-seats and  bed-cushions ;  but  as  far  as  happiness  is 
concerned,  they  are  tormented  from  their  governors  up 
through  every  member  of  the  court,  so  that  the  kingly 
crown  is  very  early  underlined  with  a  crown  of  thorns, 
or,  to  speak  differently,  the  black  round  of  sorrow  is  made 
broader  in  proportion  to  their  high  rank.  For,  indeed, 
when  we  consider  how  generally  a  prince,  satiated  with 
eating  and  drinking,  is  educated,  so  that  he  cannot  make  a 
step  without  tutors  and  lectures,  nor  a  skip  without  the 
dancing-master,  nor  take  a  breath  of  fresh  air  without  four 


JOYOUSNESS    OF    CHILDREN.  8l 

horses,  we  must  almost  believe  that  the  ancient  heretic 
Basilides  is  now  again  right  as  regards  princes,  when  he 
declared  that  the  early  Christians  would  often  have  been 
martyrs  for  future  sins,  if  the  after-pains  were  not  added 
to  the  fore-pains  of  the  future. 

Cheerfulness  —  this  feeling  of  an  entirely  free  nature 
and  life,  this  self-enjoyment  of  the  inner  world,  not  of  an 
outward  minute  part  of  the  world  —  opens  the  child  to 
tfcie  penetrating  all ;  it  receives  nature,  not  loveless  and 
defenceless,  but  loving  and  armed,  and  lets  all  the  young 
powers  rise  like  morning  beams,  and  play  upon  the  world 
and  upon  itself;  and  it  imparts,  as  moroseness  takes 
away,  strength.  The  early  blossoms  of  gladness  are  not 
corn-flowers  among  the  seed,  but  are  themselves  little 
young  ears  of  corn.  It  is  a  beautiful  tradition  that  the 
Virgin  Mary  and  the  poet  Tasso  never  wept  as  children.* 

But  now  the  question  is  of  the  means  and  starry  in- 
fluences which  preserve  this  cheerfulness.  If  it  merely 
resulted  from  negative  and  physical  conditions,  then,  at 
least  for  the  most  instructive  half-year  of  life,  that  is,  the 
first,  all  would  be  obtained  by  a  child  who  was  born  in 
spring.  Why  do  not  men  begin  life,  as  Oriental  nations 
do  the  year,  with  spring  ?  A  child  born  at  this  season, 
might  an  almanac  say  without  lying,  moves  slowly  on 
from  charm  to  charm,  from  leaves  to  flowers,  from  the 
warmth  of  rooms  to  that  of  the  sky :  the  wind  i«  not  yet 
his  enemy,  —  instead  of  storms,  melodies  breathe  in  the 
branches,  —  born  to  a  half-year*s  festival  of  the  earth,  he 
must  believe  that  life  remains  so,  —  he  sees  the  rich  earth 
only  afterwards  hidden  by  its  covering,  —  and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  life  which  the  suckling  mother  imbibes  flows 
warm  through  the  little  heart. 

*  Pertschen's  Church  History. 
4*  V 


82  LEVANA. 


CHAPTER   III. 

GAMES    OF    CHILDREN. 

§46. 

THAT  which  produces  and  maintains  cheerfulness  is 
nothing  but  activity.  The  usual  games  of  children, 
unlike  ours,  are  only  the  expressions  of  earnest  activity, 
clothed  in  lightest  wings  :  children  have  also  a  game  (it 
is  one  to  them),  I  mean  that  of  joking,  of  unmeaning 
speech,  in  order  to  have  something  to  say  to  themselves, 
and  so  forth.  Now  if  a  German  were  to  write  a  book 
about  the  games  of  children,  which  would  at  least  be  more 
useful  than  one  about  games  of  cards,  he  would,  it  seems 
to  me,  distinctly  and  correctly  divide  them  only  into  two 
classes  :  first,  into  games  or  exertions  of  the  receiving,  ap- 
prehending, learning  faculties ;  and,  secondly,  into  games 
of  the  acting,  forming  powers.  The  first  class  would  em- 
brace activity  from  without  working  inwardly,  like  the 
nerves  of  sense  ;  the  other  activity  from  within  working 
outwardly,  like  the  nerves  of  motion.  Consequently,  if 
the  author  went  deeply  into  the  first  class,  which  he  calls 
the  theoretic,  —  the  second,  on  the  other  hand,  the  prac- 
tical, —  he  would  adduce  games  which  are  properly  only 
a  child's  experimental  physics,  optics,  mechanics.  Chil- 
dren have  great  pleasure,  for  instance,  in  turning  or  rais- 
ing anything,  —  putting  keys  into  locks,  and,  in  general, 
one  thing  into  another,  —  opening  and  shutting  doors,  to 
which  is  added,  moreover,  the  dramatic  fancy  of  seeing 
the  room  now  large  now  small,  and  themselves  alone  one 
moment,  in  company  the  next ;  —  watching  the  employ- 
ment of  their  parents  is  to  them  a  game  of  this  kind,  as  is 
also  listening  to  conversation. 


GAMES    OF    CHILDREN.  83 

In  the  second  or  practical  division,  the  author  must  put 
all  those  games  in  which  the  child  seeks  to  relieve  him- 
self of  his  mental  superabundant  activity  by  dramatic 
fancies,  and  of  his  bodily,  by  movements.  The  examples 
will  come  in  the  next  paragraph. 

But  I  think  so  very  scientific  a  man  would  form  a- third 
class,  already  hinted  at ;  namely,  that  in  which  the  child 
only  plays  the  game,  does  not  really  act  and  feel  it,  that 
^  where  he  takes  and  gives  a  comfortable  form  and 
tone  ;  for  instance,  looks  out  of  the  window,  lies  upon  the 
grass,  listens  to  the  nurse  and  other  children. 

§47. 

Play  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  working  off  at  once  of 
the  overflow  of  both  mental  and  physical  powers :  after- 
wards, when  the  school  sceptre  has  carried  off  the  mental 
source  of  all  fire,  even  till  rain  comes,  the  limbs  only  throw 
off  the  fulness  of  life  by  running,  throwing,  carrying. 
Play  is  the  first  poetry  of  the  human  being.  (Eating  and 
drinking  are  his  prose,  and  striving  to  get  the  needful 
supplies  his  first  solid  bread-study  and  labor  of  life.) 
Consequently  play  forms  all  the  powers,  without  impart- 
ing an  overweening  influence  to  any  one.*  If  a  teacher 
would  be  cruel  enough  to  form  a  whole  man  into  one 
member,  for  instance,  into  a  magnified  ear,  he  must  dur- 
ing the  first  years  so  mix  the  playing  cards,  by  abstracting 
some,  that  nothing  could  ever  be  obtained  but  games  of 
sound.     If  he  wished  to  be  anything  better  in  the  games 

*  Many  children's  games  are  imitations,  but  mental ;  whereas  thbse 
of  monkeys  are  physical,  —  that  is  to  say,  not  from  any  especial  inter- 
est in  the  thing,  but  merely  because  imitation  falls  in  most  readUy 
with  the  mental  impulses  of  life.  Probably  the  monkey,  like  Dr. 
Monro's  nervous  patient,  only  imitates  strange  movements  compul- 
soriiv  and  from  weakness. 


84  LEVANA. 

than  cruel,  he  would  perhaps  endeavor  to  lead  his  pupil 
with  gentle  hand,  imitating  chance  which  acts  from  all 
sides,  and  develops  all.  But  I  dread  that  grown-up,  hairy 
hand  and  fist  which  knocks  on  the  tender,  fructifying  dust 
of  childhood's  blossoms,  and  shakes  a  color  off,  first  here, 
then  there,  so  that  the  proper  many-marked  carnation  may 
be  formed.  We  often  think  to  rule  the  external  but  broad 
empire  of  chance  by  means  which  some  inner  narrow  acci- 
dent has  thrown  together  in  ourselves.  p 

§48. 

We  will,  however,  step  further  into  the  play-place  of 
the  little  folks,  if  not  to  be  lawgivers,  yet  to  be  markers 
of  their  games.  During  the  first  months  of  existence  the 
child  knows  nothing  of  creative  play  or  efforts,  only  of  the 
passive  reception  of  impressions.  During  that  period  of 
the  most  rapid  physical  growth,  and  inpouring  of  the 
world  of  sense,  the  overwhelmed  soul  does  not  direct 
itself  towards  those  active  games  in  which  afterwards  its 
superabundant  powers  find  relief.  It  can  only  look,  listen, 
catch,  touch  :  so  laden,  its  little  hands  and  arms  quite  full, 
it  can  do  and  attempt  little  with  them. 

It  is  only  at  a  later  period,  when,  by  means  of  the  five 
acts  of  the  five  senses,  the  knowledge  of  the  outer  world 
is  attained,  and  one  word  after  another  gradually  liberates 
the  mind,  that  greater  freedom  produces  active  play,  and 
that  fancy  begins  to  move,  whose  unfledged  wings  lan- 
guage first  plumes.  Only  by  words  does  the  child  obtain 
an  inner  world  opposed  to  the  outer,  by  which  he  can  set 
the  external  universe  in  motion.  He  has  two  kinds  of 
play,  very  different  both  in  direction  and  time, — first,  that 
with  playthings,  and  second,  that  with  and  among  play- 
mates. 


GAMES    OF    CHILDREN.  85 

§49. 

In  the  first  place  the  child  plays  with  things,  conse- 
quently with  himself.  A  doll  is  to  him  a  nation,  or  a 
company  of  players,  and  he  is  the  theatrical  poet  and 
director.  Every  bit  of  wood  is  a  gilded  flower-rod,  on 
which  fancy  can  bud  hundred-leaved  roses.  For  not 
merely  to  grown-up  people,  but  also  to  children,  the 
plaything  itself  becomes  indifferent  if  a  happy  imagina- 
tion alone  is  permitted  to  decide  ;  whether  it  be  with  re- 
gard to  imperial  or  laurel  crowns,  shepherds'  crooks,  or 
marshals'  staves,  the  flails  of  war  or  of  agriculture.  In 
the  eyes  of  wonder-working  fancy  every  Aaron's  rod 
blossoms.  As  the  Elysian  fields  of  the  ancients  near 
Naples  were  grounded  (according  to  Maccard)  on  nothing 
more  than  a  bush  in  a  cave,  so,  for  children,  is  every  bush 
a  forest ;  and  they  possess  that  heaven  which  Luther  in 
his  table-talk  promises  the  saints,  where  the  bugs  are 
sweet-scented,  the  serpents  playful,  the  dogs  gold-skinned, 
and  Luther  a  lamb.  I  mean  to  say,  that  in  the  heaven 
of  childhood  the  father  is  God  the  Father,  the  mother  the 
mother  of  God,  the  nurse  a  Titaness,  the  old  servant  an 
angel  of  the  communion,  the  turkey  a  cherub  of  Eden,  and 
Eden  itself  is  restored.  Do  you  not  know  that  there  is  a 
time  when  fancy  is  more  actively  creative  than  even  in 
youth,  namely,  in  childhood,  in  which  nations  create  their 
gods,  and  only  speak  in  poetry  ? 

Never  forget  that  the  games  of  children  with  inanimate 
playthings  are  so  important,  because  for  them  there  are 
only  living  things  :  a  doll  is  as  much  a  human  being  to  a 
child  as  a  baby  is  to  a  woman  ;  and  also  because  to  them 
every  word  is  a  reality.  In  beasts  the  body  alone  plays, 
in  children  the  mind.  Life  meets  them  on  every  side ; 
they  cannot  comprehend  death,  or  anything  dead;  and 


86  LEVANA. 

therefore  the  happy  beings,  animating  everything,  sur- 
round themselves  only  with  life,  and  hence  it  is  they  say, 
for  instance,  "  The  lights  have  covered  themselves  up  and 
gone  to  bed,"  "  The  spring  has  dressed  itself,"  "  The  water 
runs  down  the  glass,"  "His  house  lives  there,"  "The  wind 
dances,"  —  or  of  a  watch  from  which  the  works  are  re- 
moved, "  It  is  not  alive." 

But  among  richer  realities  fancy  fades  and  grows  poor ; 
in  the  mean  time  every  plaything  and  play-world  is  only 
a  distaff  of  flax  from  which  the  soul  spins  a  many-colored 
coat.  As  the  rook  in  chess  was,  among  different  people, 
now  a  camel,  now  an  elephant,  a  stork,  a  boat,  a  castle  ; 
so  among  children,  one  plaything  often  acts  many  parts, 
and  every  time  it  seems  to  them,  as  manna  did  to  the 
Jews,  the  very  thing  they  desired.  The  author  remem- 
bers a  little  girl  of  two  years  old,  who,  afler  having  long 
carried  about  an  old  doll  reduced  to  the  bare  wood,  had  at 
last  placed  in  her  arms  a  very  pretty  and  skilfully  dressed 
one,  —  a  foster-sister  of  the  most  beautiful  in  Bertuch's 
Journal  des  3fodes,  which  it  resembled  as  much  in  optic 
beauty  as  it  surpassed  it  in  size.  Soon  afterwards  the 
child  not  only  resumed  her  former  conduct  towards  the 
wooden  sloven,  but  went  so  far  as  to  take  into  her  arms, 
in  the  place  of  child  or  doll,  a  shabby  boot-jack  of  her 
father's,  which  she  nursed  and  rocked  to  sleep  as  lovingly 
as  the  above-mentioned  original  of  Bertuch's  pictures.  So 
much  more  readily  does  fancy  invest  an  invisible  Adam's 
rib  with  human  limbs  and  fashionable  costume,  than  a  doll 
which  only  differs  in  size  from  a  lady,  and  which,  on  its 
side,  appears  to  the  imagination  at  the  next  tea-party  so 
perfect  that  it  can  be  improved  in  nothing.  Just  so  the 
same  little  lassie,  sitting  beside  the  author,  wrote  for  a 
long  time  with  a  pen  dipped  only  in  air  on  an  ever-white 


GAMES    OF    CHILDREN.  8/ 

sheet  of  paper,  until  he  almost  fancied  it  was  a  satire  on 
himself.  Consequently  do  not  surround  your  children, 
like  princes'  children,  with  a  little  world  of  the  turner's  : 
do  not  give  them  eggs  colored,  and  painted  over  with 
figures,  but  white ;  they  will  soon  from  their  own  minds 
hatch  the  colored  feathers.  On  the  contrary,  the  older  a 
man  grows  the  more  rich  a  reality  should  appear :  the 
heath  on  which  the  youth  gleaned  at  least  the  morning 
dew  of  the  light  of  love  grows  cold  with  the  dark  night 
dew  to  the  half-bhnd  old  man,  and  at  last  man  requires  a 

whole  world,  I  mean  the  next,  in  order  only  to  hve. 

# 

§50. 

But  by  the  same  fancy  which,  like  the  sun,  paints  the 
colors  on  the  leaves,  are  they  also  again  removed  from 
them.  The  same  mistress  of  the  robes  dresses,  and  also 
undresses;  consequently  there  is  for  children  no  ever- 
enduring  play  or  plaything.  Therefore  do  not  leave  a 
plaything  which  has  lost  its  charm  long  before  the  eye 
conscious  of  the  change ;  lay  it  by.  After  a  long  time 
the  dismissed  favorite  will  be  received  with  honor.  The 
same  is  to  be  said  of  picture-books ;  for  a  poetic  animation 
is  as  necessary  to  the  picture-book  as  to  the  play-drawer. 
A  few  words  about  that.  The  proper  picture-books  for 
ABC  children  do  not  consist  of  a  sequence  of  unknown 
plants  and  animals,  whose  differences  only  the  instructed 
eye  perceives,  but  of  historical  pieces  which  present  the 
actions  of  animals  or  men  taken  from  the  child's  circle. 
Then  this  hving  gallery,  in  whose  universal  history  the 
child  can  more  clearly  paint  the  individual  being  than  the 
reader  or  author  can  in  the  all-embracing  generality  of 
poetry,  may  be  exalted  into  historic  groups  ;  for  instance, 
into  a  Joseph  among  his  brethren,  selling  or  recognizing 


88  LEVANA. 

him,  —  into  a  Hector's  farewell  of  wife  and  child,  and 
such  like  subjects. 

Children — those  of  one  or  two  years  old  excepted,  who 
still  need  the  spur  of  color  —  only  require  drawings,  not 
paintings ;  colors  resemble  the  above-mentioned  luxuri- 
ousness  of  playthings,  and,  by  reality,  weaken  the  cre- 
ative faculty.  Therefore  give  no  plaything  whose  end  is 
only  to  be  looked  at ;  but  let  every  one  be  such  as  to  lead 
to  work.  For  instance,  a  little  complete  mine,  after  being 
a  few  hours  before  the  child's  eyes,  is  altogether  gone  over, 
and  each  tiny  vein  of  ore  exhausted  ;  but  a  box  of  build- 
ing materials,  a  collection  of  detached  houses,  bridges,  and 
trees,  by  their  ever-varying  location,  will  make  him  as  rich 
and  happy  as  an  heir  to  the  throne  who  makes  his  mental 
dispositions  known  by  rebuilding  his  father's  palace  in  the 
park.  Moreover,  small  pictures  are  better  than  large  ones. 
What  is  to  us  almost  invisible,  is  to  children  only  little  ; 
they  are  physically  short-sighted,  consequently  suited  to 
what  is  near;  and  with  their  short  yard,  that  is,  with  their 
little  body,  they  so  easily  find  giants  everywhere,  that  to 
these  little  juveniles  we  should  present  the  world  on  a  re- 
duced scale. 

§51. 

Before  the  new  philosophers,  who  in  education  more 
readily  give  everything  than  something,  one  grows  so 
very  much  ashamed  of  such  a  paragraph  as  this,  that  one 
scarcely  knows  how  to  deck  and  sweeten  it.  I  must,  how- 
ever, say  that,  for  children  in  their  early  years,  I  know  no 
cheaper  and  more  lasting  plaything  —  one  that  is  also 
clean  and  suited  for  both  sexes  —  than  what  every  one 
has  in  the  pineal  gland,  some  in  the  bladder,  and  birds  in 
the  stomach,  —  sand.  I  have  seen  children  weary  of  play 
use  it  for  hours  as  building  material,  as  hurling  machine, 


GAMES    OF    CHILDREN.  89 

as  a  cascade,  water  for  washing,  seed,  flour,  finger  tickler, 
as  inlaid  work,  and  raised  work,  as  a  ground  for  writing 
and  painting.  It  is  to  boys  what  water  is  to  girls.  Phi- 
losophers !  strew  sand  less  in  than  before  the  eyes  in  the 
bird-cage  of  your  children.  Only  one  thing  has  to  be 
cared  for  with  regard  to  it,  that  they  do  not  eat  their 
plaything. 

§52. 

The  second  kind  of  play  is  the  playing  of  children  with 
children.  If  men  are  made  for  men,  so  are  children  for 
children,  only  much  more  beautifully.  In  their  early 
years  children  are  to  one  another  only  the  completion  of 
their  fancy  about  one  plaything :  two  fancies,  like  two 
flames,  play  near  and  in  one  another,  yet  ununited. 
Moreover,  children  alone  are  sufficiently  childlike  for 
children.  But  in  later  years  the  first  little  bond  of  soci- 
ety is  woven  of  flower-garlands  ;  playing  children  are 
little  European  savages  in  social  contract  for  the  perform- 
ance of  one  drama.  On  the  play-place  they  first  issue 
from  the  speaking  and  audience  hall  into  the  true  sphere 
of  action,  and  begin  their  human  praxis.  For  parents 
and  teachers  are  ever  to  them  those  strange  heaven- 
descended  gods,  who,  according  to  the  belief  of  many 
nations,  appeared  teaching  and  helping  the  new  men  on 
the  new-born  earth:  at  least  they  are  to  the  child  gigantic 
Titans  ;  —  consequently  in  this  theocracy  and  monarchy 
free  resistance  is  forbidden  and  injurious  to  them,  obedi- 
ence and  faith  serviceable  and  salutary.  Where,  then,  can 
the  child  show  and  mature  his  governing  power,  his  resist- 
ance, his  forgiveness,  his  generosity,  his  gentleness,  in 
short,  every  root  and  blossom  of  society,  except  in  freedom 
among  his  equals  ?     Teach  children  by  childi-en !     The 


9©  LEVANA. 

entrance  into  their  play-room  is  for  them  an  entrance  into 
the  great  world  ;  and  their  mental  school  of  industry  is  in 
the  child's  play-room  and  nursery.  It  is  often  of  more 
use  to  a  boy  himself  to  administer  the  cane  than  to  receive 
it  from  his  tutor ;  and  still  more  to  have  it  inflicted  by 
one  of  his  equals  than  by  one  of  his  superiors.  If  you 
wish  to  form  a  slave  for  life,  fasten  a  boy  for  fifteen  years 
to  the  legs  and  arms  of  his  tutor,  who  is  to  be  at  once 
theatrical  director,  and  occasional  member  of  the  two-per- 
soned  company.  Like  all  slaves,  the  child  will  probably 
keep  his  eye  and  heart  armed  against  his  tyrant's  individ- 
uality ;  but,  accustomed  to  one  climate,  and  sailing  only 
with  one  wind,  he  will  be  unable  in  future  to  withstand 
the  all-sidedness  of  individualities. 

§53. 

The  teaching  and  feeding  master  of  the  little  one  always 
acts  as  if  the  proper  life  of  the  child,  as  a  human  being, 
were  not  actually  begun,  but  waited  until  he  himself  had 
departed  in  order  then  to  lay  the  keystone  of  the  arch. 
Even  the  travelling  tutor  believes  that,  so  long  as  he 
walks  beside  and  sows  seed  in  the  furrow,  the  time  of 
leaves  and  flowers  has  not  arrived.  For  man,  needing  an 
external  whole,  when  once  an  inner  one  animates  him, 
fixes  that  outer  one,  like  the  arch  of  the  sky,  and  the  ap- 
proach of  heaven  to  earth,  in  the  distance  and  on  the  hori- 
zon, although  from  every  hill  which  he  successively  mounts 
that  heaven  flies  away  into  the  more  distant  blue  ;  and  so 
man  arrives  at  old  age,  and  at  last,  on  the  mound  of  the 
grave,  heaven  rests  upon  earth.  The  whole  of  life  is, 
then,  nowhere  or  everywhere.  Heavens !  where  a  man 
is,  there  eternity,  not  time,  begins.  Consequently  the 
plays  and  actions  of  children  are  as  serious  and  full  of 


GAMES    OF    CHILDREN.  91 

meaning  in  themselves,  and  in  reference  to  their  future,  as 
ours  are  to  ours.  The  early  game  becomes  the  earnest 
of  later  years  ;  although  children  in  play  often  repeat 
something  as  the  echo  of  an  earlier  reality,  just  as  the 
Neapolitans  play  cards  during  theatrical  representations. 
Moser  dictated  his  works  while  playing  ombre :  perhaps 
his  have  been  secretly  suggested  to  many  an  author  by 
his  early  childhood's  games.  As  chess  is  said  to  serve 
for  instruction  in  war  and  government,  so  the  future  lau- 
rels and  tree  of  knowledge  grow  in  the  play-ground.  The 
bishop  Alexander  considered  those  children  on  whom 
Athanasius  when  a  child  playfully  bestowed  baptism  to 
have  been  really  baptized.  If,  as  Archenholz  relates,  the 
boys  of  Winchester  School  once  rebelled  against  their 
masters,  garrisoned  the  principal  entrance  to  the  school- 
house,  and  provided  themselves  so  well  with  arms  and 
munition,  that  the  high  sheriff  of  the  county,  although  he 
marched  against  them  with  150  constables  and  80  militia 
men,  was  yet  obliged  to  grant  an  honorable  capitulation, — 
I  see  in  this  angry  play  nothing  further  than  the  youth  of 
that  present  (even  though  it  be  unjust)  manhood,  which 
bars  rivers  and  harbors,  and  their  own  island,  and  on  the 
sea  conquers  countries:  so  much  does  the  foam  of  childish 
play  subside  into  true  wine ;  and  their  fig-leaves  conceal 
not  nakedness,  but  sweet  figs. 

§54. 

If  one  were  to  make  propositions,  that  is,  wishes,  one 
might  express  this :  that  for  every  child  a  circle  of  games 
and  real  actions  should  be  provided,  composed  of  as  many 
different  individualities,  conditions,  and  years  as  can  pos- 
sibly be  found,  in  order  to  prepare  him  in  the  orbis  pictus 
of  a  diminished  play-world,  for  the  lai'ger  real  one.     But 


92  LEVANA. 

to  give  the  social  account  of  these  three  play  provinces 
would  require  a  book  within  the  book. 

Moreover,  I  would  propose  pleasure  and  play-masters, 
as  the  precursors  and  leaders  of  the  schoolmaster,  —  and 
also  play-rooms,  empty  as  those  rooms  on  whose  plaster 
walls  Raphael's  immortal  flowers  bloom,  —  and  also  play- 
gardens.  And  I  am  just  reading  that  Grabner,  in  his 
travelling  description  of  the  Netherlands,  gives  an  account 
of  play-schools,  to  which  the  Dutchman  sends  his  children 
sooner  than  to  the  schools  of  instruction.  Certainly  if 
one  of  the  two  must  fall,  it  were  better  the  former  should 
continue  in  existence. 

Yet  a  few  miscellaneous  observations.  Children  love 
no  plays  so  much  as  those  in  which  they  have  something 
to  expect,  or  to  dread ;  so  early  does  the  poet,  with  his 
knot  making  and  loosing,  play  his  part  in  man.  From 
time  to  time  they,  like  deep,  unlucky  players,  ask  for  new 
cards.  But  this  changeableness  is  not  merely  that  of 
luxury,  but  also  the  consequence  of  their  rapid  growth, 
for  the  so  quickly  ripening  child  seeks  new  fruits  in 
new  countries,  as  the  aged  seek  new  ones  in  the  old. 
Perhaps  also  it  is  the  consequence  of  that  want  of  a  future 
and  a  past,  whereby  a  child  is  so  much  more  strongly 
affected  and  wearied  by  the  present,  as  though  he  were 
seated  in  a  world  of  sunbeams  without  morning  and  even- 
ing redness :  and,  lastly,  for  the  child,  to  whose  littleness 
not  only  space  but  time  is  magnified,  play-hours  must 
grow  into  play-years ;  and  therefore  we  must  indulge 
him,  the  short-sighted  being,  in  his  desire  of  change  and 
new  games.  The  one-houred  constancy  of  a  child  equals, 
nay,  surpasses,  that  of  one  month  in  his  parents. 

The  Jews  forbade  to  celebrate  two  festivals  on  the  same 
day,  —  a  marriage,  for  instance,  on  a  feast-day,  or  two  mar- 


GAMES    OF    CHILDREN.  93 

riages  at  the  same  time.  Should  not  children  be  refused 
in  a  similar  manner,  if,  after  having  taken  a  walk  on  a 
summer  evening,  they  beg  leave  to  play  in  the  garden, 
and  then,  thirdly,  to  bring  their  play-fellows  into  the  par- 
lor for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before  supper  ?  For  herein 
are  children  antedated  grown-up  persons ;  and,  while  at 
work,  scarcely  long  so  much  for  pleasure,  as  for  what 
comes  after  a  pleasure ;  from  one  sugar  island  they  would 
at  once  sail  over  to  another,  and-  heap  heaven  upon 
heaven.  If  this  frequentativum  of  the  enjoyment  of  even 
innocent  pleasures  is  allowed,  the  child,  dearest  mother, 
becomes  only  fitted  for  a  court,  or  royal  residence,  and 
lays  claim  to  pleasure  as  a  right,  —  months  of  thirty-two 
days,  and  feast-days  of  twenty-five  hours,  each  of  which 
measures  full  sixty-one  minutes.  And  so  the  little  being 
is  already  dipped  in  the  honey  of  present  superabundant 
pleasure,  whereby  time  clogs  the  butterfly-wings  of  the 
Psyche  for  every  flight.  The  only  good  (if,  indeed,  it  be 
any)  that  can  come  out  of  a  girl  thus  educated,  is  at  most 
a  woman  who,  on  the  same  day,  after  having  received 
and  paid  some  visits,  amuses  herself  at  the  theatre,  and 
then  afterwards  hopes  for  cards  and  dancing. 

As  nature  by  cool,  refreshing  night  breaks  off  the  cul- 
minating pleasures  of  our  constitution,  always  requiring 
stronger  excitement;  so  this  healthy  night-coolness  should 
be  given,  in  a  mental  sense,  to  children,  in  order  not  to 
expose  them  in  future  to  the  sufferings  of  people  of  the 
world  and  of  pleasure ;  who,  like  sea-farers  in  northern 
latitudes,  wearied  by  month-long  unceasing  day,  pray  and 
bless  God  for  a  httle  night  and  candle-light. 

But  let  there  ever  be,  if  many  games,  yet  few  play- 
things, and  not  apparent,  and  every  evening  put  away 
into  one   place,  and  for   twins  let  the   same   piece   be 


94  LEVANA. 

doubled,  as  for  three  children  trebled  in  order  to  avoid 
quarrels. 

The  early  games  should  assist  the  mental  development, 
for  the  physical  advances  gigantically  without  help :  later 
ones  should  draw  the  physical  up  along  with  the  mental, 
which,  by  schools  and  advancing  years,  takes  the  prece- 
dence. Let  the  child  toy,  sing,  look,  listen ;  but  let  the 
boy  and  the  girl  run,  climb,  throw,  build,  bear  heat  and 
cold. 

The  most  delightful  and  inexhaustible  play  is  speaking ; 
first  of  the  child  with  itself,  and  still  more  of  the  parents 
with  it.  In  play  and  for  pleasure,  you  cannot  speak  too 
milch  with  children ;  nor  in  punishing,  or  teaching  them, 
too  little. 

Immediately  after  waking,  the  child,  owing  to  his  men- 
tal and  physical  excitability,  requires  almost  nothing,  still 
less  you ;  shortly  before  going  to  sleep,  as  at  the  burning 
out  of  a  bonfire,  a  little  weariness  is  serviceable.  For 
older  children,  whom  labor  exercises  and  controls,  its  end 
(freedom),  and  then  the  open  air,  is  itself  a  play.  The 
open  air,  —  an  expression  which  Europe,  like  death,  must 
soon  exchange  for  the  more  correct  one,  the  opener  at- 
mosphere. But  let  not  the  teacher  after  the  work  also 
order  and  regulate  the  games !  It  is  decidedly  better  not 
to  recognize,  or  make  any  order  in  games  —  not  even 
mine  —  than  to  keep  it  up  with  difficulty  and  send  the 
zephyrets  of  pleasure  through  artistic  bellows  and  air- 
pumps  to  the  little  flowers.  Animals  and  savages  never 
experience  tedium,  neither  would  children  if  we  were  not 
so  very  anxious  to  keep  it  away.  Let  the  child  experi- 
ence in  play  his  future  life;  and  since  from  that  the 
mountain  and  storm  pressure  of  tedium  cannot  be  removed, 
let  the  child  sometimes  feel  it,  in  order  afterwards  not  to 
perish  under  its  weight. 


CHILDREN'S    DANCES.  95 

CHAPTER   IV. 

children's  dances. 

§55. 

I  KNOW  not  whether  I  should  most  deprecate  chil- 
dren's balls,  or  most  praise  children's  dances !  The 
former  —  before  the  dancing-master,  in  the  society  of 
lookers-on  and  fellow-dancers,  in  the  hot  temperature 
of  the  ball-room,  and  among  its  hot  products  —  are,  in  the 
highest  degree,  the  front  ranks  and  leading-steps  to  the 
dance  of  death.  On  the  contrary,  children's  dances  are 
what  I  will  now  commend  more  at  large. 

As  the  first  speech  long  precedes  grammar,  so  should 
dancing  precede,  and  prepare  the  way  for,  the  art  of 
dancing.  A  father  who  has  an  old  piano,  or  fiddle,  or 
flute,  or  an  improvising  singing  voice,  should  call  his  own 
and  neighbor's  children  together,  and  let  them  every  day 
for  an  hour  hop  and  turn  by  his  orchestra,  in  pairs,  in 
rows,  in  circles,  very  frequently  alone,  accompanying 
themselves  with  singing,  as  their  own  grinding  organ; 
and  also  in  any  way  they  like.  In  the  child  happiness 
dances;  in  the  man,  at  most,  it  only  smiles  or  weeps. 
The  mature  man  can  in  dancing  only  express  the  beauty 
of  the  art,  not  himself  and  his  emotions:  love  would 
thereby  comport  itself  too  rudely,  joy  too  loudly  and  boldly, 
before  the  stern  Nemesis.  In  the  child,  body  and  soul 
still  live  united  in  their  honeymoon,  and  the  active  body 
dances  after  the  happy  soul ;  until  afterwards  both  sepa- 
rate from  bed  and  board,  and  at  last  entirely  leave  one 
another.  In  later  times  the  light  zephyr  of  contentment 
cannot  turn  the  heavy  metal  standard  to  point  its  course. 


96  LEVANA. 

§56. 
Children  are  like  Forrer's  watches,  which  wind  them- 
selves up  if  you  walk  about  with  them.  As  in  the  old 
astronomy,  eleven  of  their  heavens  are  movable,  and 
only  one,  that  of  sleep,  stationary.  It  is  only  dancing  in 
a  circle  that  is  light  enough  for  a  child ;  only  for  youth  is 
a  straight  course  not  too  difficult.  As  to  the  heavenly 
bodies,  so  to  children,  do  the  motion  and  music  of  the 
spheres  belong ;  whereas  the  older  body,  like  water,  takes 
the  straight  path.  To  speak  more  plainly :  Women,  it  is 
well  known,  cannot  run,  but  only  dance ;  and  every  one 
would  more  easily  reach,  by  dancing  than  by  walking,  a 
post-house,  to  which,  instead  of  a  straight  poplar  alley,  a 
lordly  row  of  trees,  planted  in  the  English  fashion,  con- 
ducted. Now  children  are  diminutive  women,  —  at  least 
boys  are,  although  girls  are  often  only  diminutive  boys. 
Dancing  is  the  easiest  of  all  movements,  because  it  needs 
the  least  space,  and  is  the  most  varied :  hence  joy  is  not 
a  runner,  but  a  dancer :  hence  the  indolent  savage  dances, 
and  the  wearied  negro  slave  rouses  himself,  by  dancing, 
to  fresh  exertion :  hence  the  runner  —  all  other  circum- 
stances being  the  same  —  has  more  frequently  fallen  down 
dead  than  the  dancer.  Hence  camels  and  armies  and 
Oriental  laborers  continue  their  laborious  marches  for  a 
longer  time,  and  with  more  ease,  to  the  sound  of  music  ; 
not  principally  because  music  produces  cheerfulness,  —  that 
might  easily  be  attained  by  other  pleasures,  —  but  because 
music  rounds  off  the  straight  movement  into  the  circling 
dance  and  its  still  returning  rhythm ;  for  it  is  only  in  a 
circular,  not  in  a  straight  line,  that  everything  returns  in 
thirds.  As  an  argumentative  or  a  narrative  sequence 
(science  or  history)  prepares  us  by  every  effort  of  atten- 
tion for  a  still  stronger,  whereas  the  zigzag  of  the  epigram 


CHILDREN'S    DANCES.  97 

each  moment  compels  us  to  a  new  beginning,  and  fresh 
exertion ;  so  physically  the  same  is  the  case  in  running 
and  walking,  in  which,  up  hill  or  down  hill,  no  effort  is 
cause  of  its  successor,  but  the  great  follows  the  little,  or 
the  strongest  the  strongest,  as  the  case  may  be :  in  dan- 
cing, on  the  contrary,  without  aim  or  compulsion,  one 
movement  constantly  springs  out  of  the  other,  and  renders 
cessation,  rather  than  continuance,  difficult.  All  running, 
but  no  dancing,  desires  an  end.  What  better  movement, 
then,  can  there  be  for  children,  than  this  revolving  one  ? 
The  gymnastic  of  running,  going  on  stilts,  climbing,  &c., 
steels  and  hardens  individual  forces  and  muscles,  whereas 
dancing,  on  the  contrary,  like  a  physical  poetry,  exercises 
and  equalizes  all  the  muscles. 

§  57. 

Further,  the  harmony  connected  with  it  imparts  to  the 
affections  and  the  mind  that  metrical  order  which  reveals 
the  liighest,  and  regulates  the  beat  of  the  pulse,  the  step, 
and  even  the  thoughts.  Music  is  the  metre  of  this  poetic 
movement,  and  is  an  invisible  dance,  as  dancing  is  a  silent 
music.  Finally  this  also  ranks  among  the  advantages  of 
this  eye  and  heel  pleasure ;  that  children  with  children, 
by  no  harder  canon  than  the  musical,  light  as  sound,  may 
be  joined  in  a  rosebud-feast,  without  thorns  or  strife. 

In  short,  dancing  cannot  come  soon  enough,  '.'  but  the 
dancing-master  may  more  easily  come  too  soon  than  too 
late."  This  last  part  appears  in  the  first  edition.  I 
should,  perhaps,  more  correctly  have  written  singing  than 
dancing  master,  because  those  skilled  in  the  art  declare 
that  the  early  exercise  of  the  voice  is  injurious  to  it.  The 
first  edition  is  only  right  in  so  far  as  it  may  to  the  utmost 
remove  children,  brought  up  in  genteel  coquetry,  from  the 


98  LEVANA. 

influence  of  the  dancing-master,  who  would  reduce  all 
bodily  movements  to  rule  and  system.  On  the  other  side, 
again,  the  second  edition  is  right,  if  it  add,  that  better- 
educated  children,  who  in  their  eighth  and  ninth  years, 
instead  of  vanity,  know  only  the  law  of  the  good  and  the 
beautiful,  may  join  with  less  danger  to  their  higher  self 
the  trivial  regiment  and  ruling  fiddle  of  the  dancing-mas- 
ter in  their  early  years,  when  they  can  learn  to  dance,  as 
to  walk  and  to  read,  without  coquetry.  Then  also  the 
dancing-hour  may  become  an  hour  of  freedom  and  play 
to  those  poor  persecuted  children  who  are  treated  like 
goats,  whose  sinews  are  cut  to  prevent  them  from  jumping. 


CHAPTER    V. 


MUSIC. 

§58. 

MUSIC,  the  only  fine  art  in  which  man  and  all 
classes  of  animals  —  spiders,  mice,  elephants,  fish, 
amphibious  creatures,  birds  —  have  a  community  of 
goods,  must  ceaselessly  affect  the  child,  who  is  the  spir- 
itual man  and  the  brute  beast  united.  And  so  one  njight 
break  the  heart  of  the  little  new  possessor  of  life  with  a 
trumpet,  and  its  ear  with  shrieks  and  discord.  There- 
fore, it  is  probable  that  the  first  music,  perhaps,  as  an  un- 
dying echo  in  the  child,  forms  the  secret  thorough-bass, 
the  melodious  theme  in  the  brain-chambers  of  a  future 
master  of  sound,  which  his  after  compositions  only  harmo- 
niously vary. 


MUSIC.  99 

Music,  rather  than  poetry,  should  be  called  "  the  happy- 
art."  She  imparts  to  children  nothing  but  heaven,  for  as 
yet  they  have  not  lost  it,  and  lay  no  memories  as  mufflers 
on  the  clear  sounds.  Choose  melting  melodies,  and  soft 
strains  ;  even  with  those  you  only  excite  the  child  to  frisk 
and  dance  about.  Savages,  powerful  and  pleasure-loving 
people,  such  as  Greeks,  Russians,  and  Neapolitans,  have 
their  popular  songs  set  entirely  in  minor  keys.  For 
some  years  the  child,  like  the  father,  can  weep  at  certain 
sounds  ;  but  in  him  it  arises  from  overflowing  happiness, 
for  as  yet  the  memory  does  not  place  beneath  those  tune- 
ful hopes  the  reckoning  of  its  losses. 

§59. 

Yet  among  all  the  instruments  which  sound  in  Haydn's 
child's  concerts,  that  best  serves  the  purposes  of  educa- 
tional music  which  is  born  with  the  performer,  —  the  voice. 
In  the  childhood  of  nations  speaking  was  singing.  Let 
this  be  repeated  in  the  childhood  of  the  individual.  In 
singing,  the  human  being,  harmony  and  heart  coalesce  at 
the  same  time  in  one  breast,  whereas  instruments  seem 
only  to  lend  him  a  voice :  with  what  arms  can  a  parent 
more  closely  and  more  gently  draw  the  little  beings  to- 
wards him,  than  with  his  spiritual  ones,  with  the  tones  of 
his  own  heart,  with  the  same  voice  which  always  speaks 
to  them,  but  now  transfigured  into  a  musical  ascension  ? 

Thereby  they  have  the  advantage  and  the  conscious- 
ness that  they  can  imitate  it  on  the  spot.  Singing  takes 
the  place  of  screaming,  which  the  doctors  so  much  praise 
as  a  palaestra  for  the  lungs,  and  first  military  exercise  of 
speech.  Is  there  anything  more  beautiful  than  a  merry 
singing  child?  And  how  unweariedly  he  repeats  the 
same  thing,  which  is  so  repulsive  to  the  little  soul  in  all 


loo  LEVANA. 

other  games  !  As  in  maturer  age,  the  Alpine  shepherd 
and  the  chained  laborer  sing  away  their  vacancy,  and 
long  hours  of  compulsory  sitting,  so  the  child  sings  away 
childhood,  and  sings  on,  hearing  only  himself.  For  har- 
mony, like  the  innate  poetry  of  the  feelings,  says  nothing 
but  the  same  thing,  unsatiated  by  repetition,  unwearied 
by  sound. 

Let  the  father,  like  the  Frieslander,  follow  the  proverb, 
—  Frisia  non  cantat,  —  and  never  or  seldom  sing :  I 
would  wish  him  to  do  it  for  his  children,  and  the  mother 
for  him  and  them. 

§60. 

As  one  drops  asleep  by  inward  listening  to  singing,  so 
one  might,  at  least  in  a  case  where  immediate  waking  is 
necessary  (always  a  most  undesirable  thing),  effect  it  by 
music,  as  Montaigne's  father  did.  A  flute-playing  clock 
would  be  a  good  awakener.  And  why  should  not  har- 
mony be  employed  as  a  soul-curative  means  against  the 
maladies  of  children,  against  vexation,  obstinacy,  anger  ? 


CHAPTER    VI 


COMMANDS,    PROHIBITIONS,    PUNISHMENTS,    AND    CRYING. 
§61. 

ROUSSEAU  could  not  write  these  paragraphs ;  for 
he  was  of  a  different  opinion.  But  I  agree  with 
Basedow,  and  do  not  believe,  with  the  former,  that  the 
parerftal  will  can  and  ought  to  assume  the  appearance  of 


COMMANDS,    PROHIBITIONS.  loi 

a  mere  accident.  Rewarding  and  punishing  merely  by 
physical  consequences  and  regulations,  and  in  fact  the 
whole  of  Rousseau's  system  of  education,  would  throw 
away  a  grown-up  man  for  the  sake  of  a  growing  one : 
but  life  is  not  given  to  pass  merely  from  education  again 
to  education.  Rousseau  himself  admits  that  only  an  ap- 
proach to  his  plan  is  possible  :  but  then  one  is  just  as  far 
as  ever  from  the  goal ;  since  here  it  does  not  depend  on 
the  failure  of  a  degree,  but  of  a  species.  Fortunately  this 
erroneous  course  is  closed  against  the  child's  mind. 

How,  then,  would  the  child  attain  the  after-feeling  of 
necessity,  without  the  fore-feeling  of  freedom,  which  he 
must  see  as  strong  in  others,  or  in  his  equals,  as  in  him- 
self? Much  more  must  the  child  —  proceeding  from 
himself — regard  all  things,  even  dead  matter,  as  free, 
and  be  exasperated  with  every  opposition,  as  though  it 
were  intentional.  The  deeper  the  chain  of  souls  hangs 
down,  the  broader  does  the  free  ocean  flow  around.  The 
dog  bites  the  stone,  —  the  child  strikes  both,  —  the  savage 
sees  in  the  storm  a  war  kindled  and  led  by  spirits.  It  is 
only  to  the  clearer  eye  that  that  dark  iron  mass  which  we 
call  necessity  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  universe  like  a 
black  sun.  Even  this  it  is  that  first  draws  the  free  spirit, 
which  begins  and  ends  in  freedom,  out  of  understanding 
into  reason,  out  of  the  finite  into  infinitude.  The  child, 
then,  who  makes  everything  into  an  independent  being, 
consequently  yourself  in  the  first  place,  finds  in  every 
occuiTence  a  premeditated  course  of  action,  and  in  every 
hinderance  an  enemy.  Do  not  we  older  ones  experience, 
during  our  whole  life,  the  iron  power  of  nature,  yet  with- 
out resigning  ourselves  calmly  and  uncomplainingly  to  it, 
when,  for  instance,  it  either  closes  it  irremediably,  as  in 
death,  or  imbitters  it,  as  in  old  age  ?     And  whence  do 


I02  LEVANA. 

physical  consequences  obtain  their  educational  reputation, 
except  from  the  unchangeableness  of  nature  ?  Now  free- 
will may  appear  to  the  child  just  as  consequential  and 
immovable  I  Then  he  beholds  a  higher  than  blind  ne- 
cessity. Further,  is  there  any  necessity  which  better 
teaches  endurance  than  the  mental  one  of  a  foreign  will  ? 
Finally,  how  can  trust  in  men  —  that  noble  bond  of  hu- 
man and  higher  oneness  —  come  to  life  in  a  child  without 
some  object,  without  a  parent's  w^ord  on  which  he  may 
confide  ? 

§  62.       ■ 

The  modes,  then,  of  commanding  and  forbidding  are 
all  that  come  under  consideration.  And  here  we  must 
entreat  pardon  for  the  disorderly  ranks  of  a  merely  ex- 
perimental system  of  education. 

Take  no  pleasure  in  ordering  to  do  or  not  to  do,  but  in 
the  child's  free  action.  In  frequent  orders  the  parent's 
advantage  is  more  considered  than  the  child's. 

Let  the  child  be  irresistibly  bound  by  your  word,  but 
not  you  yourself :  you  need  not  give  any  edicta  perpetua, 
but  your  lawgiving  power  can  each  day  issue  new  decre- 
tals and  pastoral  letters. 

Forbid  seldomer  by  actions  than  by  words :  do  not 
snatch  the  knife  out  of  the  child's  hands,  but  let  him 
lay  it  down  himself  at  your  desire ;  in  the  first  case  he 
obeys  the  pressure  of  a  foreign  power,  in  the  second 
its  guidance. 

Let  your  tables  of  the  law  be  unbroken,  and  in  raised 
character.  Rather  forbid  the  whole,  if  it  is  difficult  for 
you  to  separate  its  parts;  for  instance,  touching  the 
table  at  aU,  though  you  may  only  wish  to  protect  some 
articles  upon  it. 

Let  the  child  learn  in  himself  the  right  he  demands 


COMMANDS,    PROHIBITIONS.  I03 

from  others.  Consequently  let  the  respect  for  property 
be  decidedly  and  unsparingly  exacted  from  him.  What 
belongs  to  the  child  ?  Father  and  mother,  nothing  more  : 
everything  else  belongs  to  them.  But  as  every  man  de- 
sires a  world,  yea,  a  whole  universe, /or  his  patrimony, 
mete  out  little  to  the  little  one,  and  say,  —  "  No  more ! " 

The  child's  ear  readily  distinguishes  a  decided  from  an 
angry  tone  of  voice  :  the  mother  easily  falls  into  the  lat- 
ter when  she  attempts  to  imitate  the  father  in  the  former. 
His  commands  are  better  obeyed  than  hers,  for  three  rea- 
sons :  the  first,  his  decided,  though  far  removed  from 
angry  voice,  has  been  already  mentioned.  The  second 
is,  that  the  man,  for  the  most  part,  like  the  warrior,  says 
only  one,  and  consequently  the  same,  imperial  No  ; 
whereas  women  can  scarcely  say  to  a  child,  Be  quiet ! 
without  colon  and  semicolon,  and  most  necessary  notes  of 
interrogation  and  exclamation.  Was  there  ever  in  his- 
tory an  instance  of  a  woman  training  a  dog  ?  Or  could  a 
generaless,  in  commanding  her  marching  army  to  halt, 
ever  express  herself  otherwise  than  thus  :  "  All  you 
people,  as  soon  as  I  have  done  speaking,  I  command  you 
all  to  stand  still  in  your  places  ;  halt,  I  tell  you ! "  The 
third  reason  is,  that  the  man  more  rarely  withdraws  his 
refusal. 

The  best  rule  in  politics  is  said  to  be  "  pas  trop  gou-, 
verner  " :  it  is  also  true  in  education.  But  some  teachers, 
in  order  to  be  always  talking,  and  rather  to  resemble 
ringing  silver  than  dead-sounding  gold,  preach  as  often 
against  faults  and  in  favor  of  virtues  which  come  with 
years,  as  against  faults  and  for  virtues  which  increase 
with  age  ;  why,  for  instance,  is  there  so  much  precipitate 
haste  about  learning  to  walk,  to  knit,  to  read,  as  if  these 
arts  must  not  finally  come  of  themselves  ?    But  quite  dif- 


I04  LEVANA. 

ferent  things  are,  for  example,  pure  enunciation,  correct 
writing,  and  holding  the  pen  and  person  properly  while 
so  engaged,  a  sense  of  order,  and  generally  those  capabil- 
ities which  only  grow  with  years.  Since,  unfortunately, 
independently  of  these  things,  education  and  instruction 
require  so  many  words,  spare  using  them  against  fading 
faults,  and  direct  them  against  growing  ones.  Frugal 
speech  cultivates  and  strains  the  powers  of  the  interpret- 
ing child,  as  riddles  do.  Grown  people  do  the  same 
towards  one  another :  for  instance,  a  great  man  of  my 
acquaintance  says  at  first,  among  a  circle  of  strangers, 
little  more  than  hum,  hum,  and  that  very  low  ;  but  just 
as  (according  to  the  Indian  myth)  the  silent  godhead  in- 
terrupted his  eternity,  and  creation  began,  only  because 
he  in  a  similar  way  said,  "oum";  so  this  said  man,  merely 
by  his  "  hum,"  gives  every  one  much  to  think  of.  Yes,  I 
know  even  a  greater  and  more  useful  one-syllableness 
than  even  the  Chinese  :  that  is  no-syllableness,  or  silence. 
Young  doctors,  who  do  not  wish  to  forget  natural  philoso- 
phy in  their  usual  medical  sciences,  very  often  make  use 
of  it,  in  their  examinations  before  the  collegium  medicum, 
in  reply  to  very  common  questions ;  as  Socrates  was 
silent  when  angry,  so  they  wish  by  silence  to  express 
their  indignation  at  questions  about  miserable  sciences  to 
;vhich  they  have  always  remained  strangers. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression,  —  which  can  less  be 
ranked  among  the  improvements  than  among  the  addi- 
tions to  the  second  edition,  —  many  of  us  teachers  accom- 
pany our  commands  and  prohibitions  with  moral  reasons 
on  their  way  to  the  heart,  which  are  mere  superficiality, 
for  the  child's  conscience  itself  affords  their  strongest 
proof:  but  a  sequence  of  reasons  is  useful  in  connection 
with  medicinal,  gymnastic,  and   other  commands,  which 


COMMANDS,    PROHIBITIONS.  I05 

find  in  the  child,  instead  of  an  advocate,  only  curiosity 
and  ignorance. 

Further,  we  grown-up  people  all  have  and  admit 
(though  without  deriving  any  peculiar  benefit  from  it)  the 
fault  of  considering  every  difference  of  a  child  from  our- 
selves as  a  faiUng,  our  scoldings  as  lessons,  childish  errors 
as  greater  than  our  own ;  and  thence  it  is  we  so  thought- 
lessly convert  our  educational  rein  and  leading-strings 
into  a  hanging  rope,  and  would  willingly  carve  the  child 
into  a  neat  cork  Swiss  model  of  our  Alps  (as  Pfyffer  does 
the  lofty  mountains)  ;  and  thence  it  is  also,  since  the  like 
is  not  easily  accomplished,  that  we  talk  on  and  on,  like 
the  shell  sea-trumpet  which  ceaselessly  sounds,  and  with 
our  school-chalk  draw  and  lengthen  the  broad  stroke  be- 
fore the  beak  of  the  poor  hen,  so  that  she  may  always 
stare  down  on  the  same  line  without  being  able  to  look 
upwards. 

Even  a  grown-up  man  whom  some  one  should  follow 
all  day  long  with  movable  pulpit  and  stool  of  confession, 
from  which  to  hurl  sermons  and  anathemas,  could  never 
attain  any  real  activity  and  moral  freedom;  how  much 
less,  then,  a  weak  child,  who  at  every  step  in  life  must  be 
entangled  in  a  "  stop  —  run  —  be  quiet  —  do  that ! "  It 
is  the  same  fault  as  that  filling  and  cramming  of  the  day 
with  mere  lessons ;  under  which  rain-spout  of  instruction 
princely  children  especially  stand,  as  if  to  make  up  by 
that  flow  of  teaching  for  the  future  ebb  of  learning.  And 
what  else,  in  fact,  is  this  but  unceasingly  to  sow  one  field 
full  of  seed  upon  seed  ?  A  dead  corn -granary  may  pos- 
sibly come  out  of  it,  but  no  living  harvest-field.  Or,  in 
another  simile,  your  watch  stops  while  you  wind  it  up, 
and  you  everlastingly  wind  up  children  and  never  let 
them  go. 

5* 


Io6  LEVANA. 

The  reason  why  children  dread  the  fire,  which  always 
burns,  more  than  the  knife,  which  does  not  always  cut, 
applies  to  their  different  kind  of  fear  of  father  and  of 
mother:  he  is  the  fire,  she  the  knife.  The  difference 
does  not  lie  in  their  severity,  for  an  angry  mother  is  se- 
verity itself,  but  in  their  unchangeableness.  The  younger 
the  child  the  more  necessary  is  one-syllableness ;  yes, 
even  that  is  not  necessary ;  shake  the  head,  and  let  that 
be  enough.  At  most  say,  Pst !  Later  on,  give  the  rea- 
sons in  a  gentle  voice,  merely  to  render  obedience  easier 
by  the  fair  tokens  of  love.  For  vehement  refusal  pro- 
duces in  the  child  vehement  demand. 

Forbid  in  a  gentle  voice,  so  that  a  whole  gamut  of  in- 
creased force  may  be  open  to  you,  and  only  once.  The 
last  may  cost  labor.  Even  in  the  child  that  human  sys- 
tem of  delay  rules,  which  for  every  rapid  determination 
must  have  time  for  three  words  of  command  and  three 
summonses,  together  with  some  hours  of  grace.  Do  not, 
then,  be  more  angry  than  is  fitting,  if  a  child,  for  instance, 
closes  a  forbidden  noise  with  a  so  finely  graduated  Alle- 
gro ma  non  troppo  and  mancando,  that  you  yourself  at 
last  cannot  accurately  distinguish  resistance  from  obedi- 
ence. Here  there  remains  no  choice  but  either  punish- 
ment for  the  most  infinitely  small  disobedience,  or,  after 
the  first  obedience,  indifference  to  the  rest:  the  latter 
seems  to  me  the  best.  But  there  is  a  more  beautiful  lin- 
gering, the  parental.  The  first  and  quickest  word  which 
a  father  gives  to  a  begging  child,  or  wife,  or  servant  is, 
No;  thereupon  he  endeavors  to  grant  the  request,  and 
says  Yes  at  the  end  instead  of  at  the  beginning.  The 
mother  does  still  worse.  Can  you,  then,  obtain  from 
yourself  no  respite,  no  interval,  before  decision,  for  the 
child,  or  whoever  it  be,  by  merely  answering  to  every  re- 


COMMANDS,    PROHIBITIONS.  107 

quest,  "  Come  again,"  or  "After  this,"  or  "In  three  Saxon 
minutes  of  rest"?  Women,  I  would  only  recommend 
you  this  law  of  delay,  in  order  to  be  less  frequently  in 
opposition  to  other's.  Another  parental  delay,  that  of 
punishment,  is  of  use  for  children  of  the  second  five  years 
(quinquennium).  Parents  and  teachers  would  more  fre- 
quently punish  according  to  the  line  of  exact  justice,  if, 
after  every  fault  in  a  child,  they  would  only  count  four 
and  twenty,  or  their  buttons,  or  their  fingers.  They 
would  thereby  let  the  deceiving  present  round  themselves, 
as  well  as  round  the  children,  escape ;  the  cold,  still  em- 
pire of  clearness  would  remain  behind,  and  the  child,  as 
well  as  the  father,  (granting,  for  instance,  that  anger 
would  else  have  been  the  object  as  well  as  the  mediator 
of  the  punishment,  or  the  correction  also  the  repetition  of 
the  fault,)  would  learn,  in  the  reflected  mutual  pain  to 
regard  that  of  the  other.  Beccaria  rightly  attaches  the 
punishment,  or  hangman,  close  to  the  heels  of  the  crim- 
inal, because  compassion  and  oblivion  would  else  only  act 
against,  not  in  favor  of,  the  executioner ;  but  the  presup- 
posed wide-extended  despotism  of  the  parental  law  ad- 
mits of  the  softening  interval  of  time  before  the  spectators, 
as  well  as  before  the  child,  and  in  the  rulers  themselves. 
Only  with  regard  to  your  youngest  children  attach  the 
punishment  to  the  very  fault,  Hke  a  physical  effect  to  its 
cause. 

§63. 

After  unchangeable  biddings  and  forbiddings,  one  might 
also  recommend  to  the  parents  some  wishes,  whose  fulfil- 
ment would  depend  solely  on  the  love  and  free  choice  of 
the  children,  in  order  to  exercise  them  in  freedom  and 
love  and  merit.     I  will  do  so. 

The  obedience  of  children,  in  itself  alone,  without  con- 


Io8  LEVANA. 

sideration  of  its  motive,  can  have  no  other  value  than  that 
thereby  much  is  made  easier  to  the  parents.  Or  would 
it  be  good  for  the  soul's  growth,  suppose  your  child  al- 
ways submitted,  bent  and  broke  his  will  to  that  of  others 
as  to  yours  ?  What  a  pliable,  dislocated  human  member, 
bound  on  the  wheel  of  fortune,  would  the  child  then  be ! 
But  what  you  desire  is,  not  his  obedience,  but  his  inclina- 
tion to  it,  love,  trust,  self-denial,  the  grateful  reverence 
for  the  best  (namely,  his  parents)  !  And  in  so  far  you 
are  right.  But  therefore  take  care  to  command  nothing 
to  which  the  higher  motive  does  not  itself  call  and  incline 
you.  To  forbid  will  irritate  less  and  cause  to  err  a  child 
who  regards  everything  as  the  independent  property  of 
his  parents,  than  to  command;  since  the  young  spirit 
already  knows  that  he  has  at  least  one  property,  himself 
and  justice.  Mothers  willingly  call  to  the  help  of  their 
biddings  and  forbiddings  the  dissipating  method,  which  by 
pleasurable  by-ways  conceals  from  the  child  the  goal  of 
authoritative  command.  But  by  this  flattering  mummery 
the  child  learns  no  rule  and  no  disciphne,  but,  before  his 
short-sighted  eye,  all  right  and  steadiness  is  converted 
into  a  merry  game  of  chance,  which  hardens  and  accus- 
toms him  to  nothing. 

Further,  the  children,  always  only  the  receivers  of  their 
parents'  gifts,  are  themselves  sometimes  gladly  the  hosts 
of  their  hosts,  and  do  the  work  of  love  more  cheerfully 
than  that  of  necessity ;  just  as  their  parents  more  willing- 
ly give  than  pay.  Let,  then,  the  request  be  proffered  in 
the  gentlest  tone  of  voice  (but  without  giving  any  rea- 
sons), and  recompensed  by  gladness  at  its  fulfilment ;  yet 
let  not  its  refusal  be  punished.  Only  the  slave  is  lashed 
to  over-service ;  even  the  camel  moves  no  swifter  before 
the  whip,  only  behind  the  flute.     Children,  it  hits  been 


PUNISHMENTS.  109 

remarked,  have  a  particular  affection  for  the  station  of 
their  grandparents  ;  and  how  comes  this,  but  because 
they  require  and  order  little,  and  consequently  their 
grandchildren  receive  it  the  more  willingly  from  them  ? 
Finally,  can  you  more  beautifully  and  soothingly  extin- 
guish the  memory  of  a  punishment  than,  when  it  is  over, 
making  the  child  happy  by  expressing  a  wish  for  a  little 
act  of  courtesy  to  some  one  ?  More  of  this  in  the  chapter 
on  the  education  of  the  affections. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


PUNISHMENTS. 


§  64. 

THIS  unchildlike  word  will  scarcely  issue  from  my 
pen :  I  would  rather  write  pain  or  after-smart. 
Punishment  should  only  apply  to  guilty  conscience,  and 
in  the  beginning  children,  like  animals,  have  only  an  inno- 
cent one.  They,  as  the  fixed  stars  viewed  from  moun- 
tains, should  never  tremble ;  and  the  earth  should  seem 
to  them,  as  it  would  do  from  a  star,  glorious,  shining,  not 
earthy  black.  Or  if  you  necessitate  them  to  sacrifice  and 
pawn  their  irrecoverable  May-time,  in  order  that  they 
may  thoroughly  enjoy  its  inmost  kernel  in  some  subse- 
quent tempestuous  period  of  life,  do  you  advise  them 
anything  different  from  what  the  Indian  does,  who  buries 
his  gold  in  order  to  enjoy  it  in  the  next  world,  after  he 
himself  is  buried? 

Great  rewards,  says  Montesquieu,  betoken  a  falling 


no  LEVANA. 

state ;  the  same  is  true  of  great  punishments  in  the 
school-house  ;  yea,  and  in  the  state  also.  Not  great  but 
unavoidable  punishments  are  mighty,  truly  almighty. 
Hence  most  police  punishments  are  usury,  —  punishing 
with  pounds  where  pennies  would  suffice,  —  so  also  are 
torturing  cruelties,  because  no  one  dreads  the  wheel  who 
scorns  the  gallows.  There  exists  in  men  a  fearful  cruelty; 
as  compassion  can  grow  into  positive  pain,  so  the  inflic- 
tion of  pain  for  punishment  can  grow  into  pleasure.  It  is 
strange,  but  to  be  proved  by  schoolmasters,  soldiers,  rus- 
tics, hunters,  overseers  of  slaves,  and  murderers,  and  by 
the  French  revolution,  that  wrathful  cruelty  is  easily 
fanned  into  a  pleasurable  sensation,  to  which  screams, 
tears,  and  flowing  wounds  actually  become  a  refreshing 
spring  to  the  thirst  for  blood.  Among  the  people  the 
blows  of  fate  on  the  parents  usually  beget,  as  in  a  stormy 
sky,  retaliating  blows  on  the  children.  Common  mothers 
strike  their  own  children  the  harder  because  they  see 
strangers  do  it,  or  because  they  cry  too  much,  or  be- 
cause they  are  too  silent.  Is  it  more  our  subjection  to 
jurist  Rome,  —  which  considered  children,  as  well  as 
women,  slaves,  and  those  who  were  not  Romans  as 
things,  not  men,  —  or  more  our  reverence  for  the  domes- 
tic sanctuary,  which  explains  the  indifference  with  which 
the  state  beholds  the  painful  judgments  of  parents  and 
teachers,  the  tortures  of  defenceless  innocence  ? 


If  the  ancient  Goths,  Greenlanders,  Quakers,  and  even 
savages,  form  tranquil  and  brave  children-souls,  without 
the  cane,  round  which  ours  must  twine  like  tame  snakes, 
we  may  perceive  how  ill  we  use  the  twig  which  must 
afterwards  be  thickened  to  a  stick.     The  one  ought  to 


PUNISHMENTS.  Ill 

have  rendered  the  other  unnecessary.  Even  the  smallest 
rod  should  only  be  used  occasionally  as  paradigma  and 
theme  of  the  future ;  afterwards  the  mere  threatening 
preaches  and  restrains.  At  the  same  time  the  reproach 
of  Goths  and  savages,  that  blows  destroy  the  courage  of 
a  boy,  proves  rather  too  much,  because  it  would  equally 
serve  against  every  useful  preventive  which  teaches  by 
pain  ;  for  instance,  burning  the  finger,  and,  moreover,  may 
be  disproved,  partly  by  the  example  of  the  common  Ger- 
man soldier,  who  probably  gives  as  many  blows  in  war  as 
he  received  in  time  of  peace,  and  also,  partly,  by  that  of 
the  officers,  with  whom  sometimes  the  opposite  is  the  case. 

A  child  who  strikes  should  be  struck,  and  best  by  the 
object  itself,  if  he  is  old  enough  ;  by  the  servants,  for  in- 
stance. If  a  child  is  struck,  say  a  girl,  the  father  may  be 
her  curator  sexus  (guardian  of  the  sex)  ;  on  the  contrary, 
if  it  be  a  boy  who  struck  a  boy,  he  would  not  deserve  the 
future  man's  hat  if  he  rather  raised  his  voice  than  his 
hand,  and  took  refuge  in  his  father's  revenging  stick. 

Never  let  the  contest  of  parental  and  childish  obstinacy 
take  place  ;  the  one  in  punishing  persistency  to  obtain  its 
object,  the  other  in  enduring  refractoriness.  After  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  exerted  authority,  leave  to  the  grieved 
child  the  victory  of  No ;  you  may  be  certain  he  will  the 
next  time  avoid  so  painful  a  one. 

TrembUngly  I  venture  to  propose  suggestive  questions, 
presupposive  of  the  matter,  —  such,  it  is  well  known,  are 
forbidden  to  judges,  because  they  would  thereby  attach  to 
the  prisoner's  answer  what  they  had  first  derived  from  it ; 
and  because,  by  this  blackening  of  forbidden  wares,  they 
would  soon  arrive  at  the  blackening  of  the  accused,  thus 
urged  to  stumble.  At  the  same  time  I  would  permit  the 
educator  occasionally  to  make  use  of  such  questions.     If 


112  LEVANA. 

he  knows,  with  every  hkehhood  of  truth,  that  the  child,  for 
instance,  has  been  on  the  ice,  contrary  to  his  order,  he 
may,  by  the  first  question,  which  only  concerns  indifferent 
by-circumstances,  as  how  long  he  has  been  on  the  pond, 
and  who  was  sliding  with  him,  take  away  from  him  at 
once  the  wish  and  the  attempt  to  pay  the  inquirer  with 
the  false  silver  of  a  lie,  —  a  wish  and  an  attempt  to  which 
the  simple  question,  whether  he  had  remained  in  the 
house,  would  have  afforded  room  and  temptation.  It  is 
impossible  that  wickedness  and  presence  of  mind  can  be 
so  great  in  a  child,  that  in  this  confusing  assault  he  will 
declare  the  seeming  omniscience  of  the  parental  inquiry 
to  be  a  lie  by  himself  giving  a  bold  lying  denial  of  the 
fact.  Children,  like  savages,  have  a  propensity  to  lie, 
which  has  chiefly  reference  to  the  past,  and  behind  which, 
as  Rousseau's  lie  about  the  ribbon  proves,  the  truthfulness 
of  riper  years  is  developed.  Baser  and  more  dangerous 
than  lies  about  what  is  past  are  prospective  lies,  or  those 
about  the  future,  by  which  the  child,  else  the  echo  of  the 
present,  annihilating  himself,  declares,  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  doing  so,  the  design  of  a  long  contrary  course  of 
bad  action :  the  lie  of  the  past  steals  good  money,  the  lie 
of  the  future  coins  false.  The  carefully  moral  use  of  a 
similar  leading  question  at  least  renders  difficult  the  so 
dangerous  success  of  the  titular  truth  of  a  lie;  for  one 
successful  lie  is  the  mother  of  hes ;  and  out  of  every  wind- 
egg  the  Devil  hatches  his  basilisks. 

One  word  about  after-anger !  A  serious  punishment 
of  a  child  is  scarcely  so  important  as  the  quarter  of  an 
hour  immediately  succeeding,  and  the  transition  to  for- 
giveness. After  the  hour  of  storm  every  seed-word  finds 
a  softened  warm  ground ;  fear  and  hatred  of  the  punish- 
ment, which  at  first  hardened  and  struggled  against  what 


PUNISHMENTS.  II3 

was  said,  are  now  past,  and  gentle  instruction  falls  in  and 
heals,  as  honey  relieves  a  sting,  and  oil  cures  wounds. 
During  this .  hour  one  may  speak  much,  if  the  gentlest 
possible  tone  of  voice  be  used,  and  soften  the  grief  of 
others  by  showing  our  own.  But  every  long  winter  of 
after-wrath  is  poisonous;  at  most  an  after-grief,  not  an 
after-punishment,  is  allowable.  Mothers,  viewing  every- 
thing on  the  foot  of  love,  and  so  treating  their  children 
like  their  husbands,  fall  easily  into  this  after-punishment, 
chiefly  because  it  better  agrees  with  their  activity,  gladly 
dividing  itself  into  little  parts,  and  because  they,  unhke 
the  man,  who  sets  the  stem  round  with  thorns,  wilHngly 
cover  the  leaves  with  prickles.  I  have,  dearest  lady- 
readers,  met  the  gentlest,  mildest  "  Blondinas  "  in  public 
places,  who,  nevertheless,  in  the  nursery  (and  in  the  ser- 
vants' hall  too),  resembled  beautiful  white  roses,  which 
prick  as  sharply  as  the  fullest  and  reddest.  Unfortunately 
it  is  often  the  case  that  women,  like  so  many  authors  (my- 
self, for  example),  do  not  know  when  to  stop  and  say. 
Halt !  A  word  which  I  have  hitherto  vainly  sought  in 
every  female  dictionary,  and  in  every  female  street-quar- 
rel. Now  this  after-anger,  this  should-be-punishing  ap- 
pearance of  loving  less,  either  passes  over  the  child,  living 
only  in  the  present,  and  resembling  a  beast  which  imme- 
diately after  the  greatest  pain  and  madness  eats  on  peace- 
ably, without  being  understood  and  without  having  any 
effect ;  or,  from  the  same  sense  of  the  present,  the  child 
reconciles  himself  to  the  want  of  marks  of  affection,  and 
learns  to  do  without  love  :  or  his  little  heart  is  imbittered 
by  the  continued  punishment  of  a  buried  fault ;  and  so  by 
this  after-rancor  the  beautiful  affecting  passage  to  forgive- 
ness is  lost,  which  by  long  gradations  is  weakened.  But 
afterwards  this  after-tax  of  punishment,  so  dear  to  women, 


114  LEVANA. 

maj  do  good  service,  when  the  girl  is  about  thirteen  years 
old,  and  the  boy  fourteen :  this  later,  riper  age  counts  so 
much  past  in  its  present,  that  the  long,  regretful  seriousness 
of  a  father  or  a  mother  must  move  and  influence  a  youth 
or  a  maiden  at  the  time  when  their  hearts  thirst  for  love  ; 
in  this  case  coldness  ripens  and  sweetens  the  fruit,  whereas 
earlier  it  only  kills  the  blossom.  Is  there  anything  more 
beautiful  than  a  mother  who,  after  a  punishment,  speaks 
to  her  child  with  gentle  earnestness  and  serious  love  ? 
And  yet  there  is  something  even  more  beautiful,  —  a 
father  who  does  the  same. 

What  is  to  be  followed  as  a  rule  of  prudence,  yea,  of 
justice,  towards  grown-up  people,  should  be  much  more 
observed  towards  children ;  namely,  that  one  should  never 
judgingly  declare,  for  instance,  "  You  are  a  liar,"  or  even, 
"  You  are  a  bad  boy,"  instead  of  saying,  "  You  have  told 
an  untruth,"  or  "  You  have  done  wrong."  For  since  the 
power  to  command  yourself  implies  at  the  same  time  the 
power  of  obeying,  man  feels,  a  minute  after  his  fault,  as 
free  as  Socrates  ;  and  the  branding  mark  of  his  nature, 
not  of  the  deed,  must  seem  to  him  a  blameworthy  punish- 
ment. To  this  must  be  added,  that  every  individuaFs 
wrong  actions,  owing  to  his  inalienable  sense  of  a  moral 
aim  and  hope,  seem  to  him  only  short,  usurped  interreg- 
nums of  the  Devil,  or  comets  in  the  uniform  solar  system. 
The  child,  consequently,  under  such  a  moral  annihilation, 
feels  the  wrong-doing  of  others  more  than  his  own  ;  and 
this  all  the  more  because  in  him  want  of  reflection,  and 
the  general  warmth  of  his  feelings,  represent  the  injustice 
of.  others  in  a  more  ugly  light  than  his  own. 

If  it  be  permitted  to  the  state  only  to  declare  actions, 
not  men,  dishonorable,  —  except  in  cases  where  it  ad- 
judges the  loss  of  life  with  that  of  honor,  because  loss  of 


PUNISHMENTS.  I15 

honor  is  the  extinction  of  humanity ;  and  every  heart, 
however  degraded,  still  preserves  indestructible  the  life- 
germ  that  may  grow  up  into  the  restoration  of  the  man : 
—  then  is  it  still  more  sinful,  by  the  cruel  frost  of  igno- 
minious punishment,  to  injure  this  life-seed  in  the  child, 
which  as  yet  only  bears  unripe  and  growing  members. 
You  may  give  him,  as  rewards,  coats  of  arms,  chains  and 
stars  of  orders,  and  doctors'  hats,  —  or,  as  punishments, 
take  all  these  away ;  but  do  not  let  the  punishments  of 
honor  be  greater ;  that  is  to  say,  do  not  let  them  be  posi- 
tive, as  the  dunces'  caps,  and  wooden  horses  of  many 
schools  are.  Shame  is  the  cold  Orcus  of  the  inner  man  ; 
a  spiritual  hell,  without  redemption,  wherein  the  damned 
can  become  nothing  else  but  at  most  one  devil  more. 
Therefore,  even  Gedicken's  advice,  to  oblige  a  child  deserv- 
ing punishment  to  write  a  theme  about  his  fault,  is  to  be 
rejected  (except  at  a  somewhat  later  period)  ;  for  what  else 
can  this  raking  up  of  the  inner  slough  produce  but  either 
foul,  complete  sinking  and  incrustation  of  the  fallen  child, 
or  poisonous  stunning  of  the  better  by  marsh  exhalations  ? 
And  does  not  the  tender  being  thus  harden  and  accustom 
himself  to  a  contradiction  between  words  and  feelings  ? 
Somewhat  similar  is  the  punishment  of  kissing  the  hand 
which  has  inflicted  chastisement.  The  state  and  educa- 
tion do  so  mutually  work  after  and  imitate  one  another ! 
I  only  cite  as  an  example  the  disgraceful  retractation  of  an 
injury.  For  as  no  civic  power  can  remove  the  opinion 
of  the  injurer,  the  command  to  revoke  his  words  is  only 
the  command  for  a  lie,  and  every  other  punishment  would 
be  juster,  and  more  acceptable,  than  this  dictated  self- 
profanation,  whereby  the  man  —  against  other  rules  of 
justice  —  must  show  himself  up  as  the  house-witness  of 
his  own  shame.     Only  the  judge,  no^  .one  of  the  parties, 


Il6  LEVANA. 

can  justly  (not  morally)  restore  honor  to  the  other ;  for 
else  he  could  also  take  away  what  he  had  again  given. 
Still  stranger  is  it  that  in  the  more  refined  degrees  of 
recantation  the  defendant  loses  in  his  own  honor  what  of 
another's  he  restores  to  the  plaintiff,  —  like  a  master  of 
the  mint  who  becomes  bankrupt.  But  back  to  our  ill- 
treated  child !  Are  not  the  wounds  which  an  honored 
warrior  scarcely  feels  made  deep  and  burning  by  dis- 
honor? so  the  dishonored  and  helpless  being  struck  by 
two  blows  hangs  between  heaven  and  earth,  scourged 
both  in  body  and  soul,  and  languishingly  desolate.  But, 
ye  parents  and  teachers,  in  a  less  degree,  but  in  the  same 
way,  do  you  inflict  inward  and  outward  torments  on  the 
weak  hearts  when,  —  as  is  so  o.ften,  —  you  surround  with 
thorns  the  corporeal,  or  other  punishments,  by  derision 
of  their  appearance,  or  by  ludicrous  names.  Never  let 
the  least  pain  be  inflicted  scoffingly,  but  seriously,  oftener 
sadly.  The  sorrow  of  the  parents  purifies  that  of  the 
child.  For  example,  if  the  royal  pupil  of  Fenelon  gave 
way  to  ebullitions  of  passion,  this  bishop  of  Cambray  — 
more  properly  of  Patmos,  for  he  might  have  been  the 
second  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  —  commanded  all  the 
servants  to  wait  on  the  king's  son  seriously  and  silently, 
and  so  let  stillness  preach. 


SCBEAMING    AND    CRYING    OF    CHILDREN. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

SCREAMING    AND    CRYING    OF    CHILDREN. 
§66. 

THE  best  about  this  is  already  written,  and  the  glean- 
ings, too,  along  with  it.  All  that  need  be  done  more 
is,  —  to  do  what  is  written  ;  and  this  I  expect  from  the 
women  for  the  first  time,  if  they  have  children  in  tlie 
second  world,  or  at  all  events  in  the  third.  But  now 
their  weak,  five-sensed  heart  is  driven  to  and  fro  by  the 
crying  and  screaming  of  children,  as  by  winds  and  waves  ; 
and,  since  they  themselves  often  perform  miracles  with 
the  liquidizing  blood  of  St.  Januarius,  that  is,  with  tears, 
it  is  natural  that  they  should  melt  at  the  flowing  tears  of 
others.  Only  to  the  man,  for  whom  eye-water  frequently 
becomes  a  petrifying  water,  shall  a  few  mollifying  con- 
siderations be  here  presented  ;  so  that  every  screaming  of 
a  child  shall  not  make  him  a  savage,  a  beast,  and  worse 
than  a  beast. 

As  Rubens  by  one  stroke  converted  a  laughing  into  a 
crying  child,  so  nature  frequently  makes  this  stroke  in  the 
original :  a  child's  eye,  like  the  sun,  never  draws  water  so 
readily  as  in  the  hot  temperature  of  pleasure ;  for  in- 
stance, after  the  return  from  a  pla}'ing  party  of  children. 
Their  mirth  very  easily  passes  beyond  the  first  extreme 
verge,  which,  by  exhaustion,  leads  to  the  second.  More- 
over, consider  that  children  have  their  hypochondriacal 
sufferings,  days  and  hours  of  rain,  just  as  much  as  their 
parents  ;  that  the  four  great  seasonal  wheels  on  quarter- 
days  also  affect  young  nerves,  and  that  the  child's  quick- 


Il8  LEVANA. 

silver  easily  falls  and  rises  with  that  in  the  glass,  before 
storms  and  cold  weather.* 

You  should  not,  however,  consider  it  in  order  to  give 
more  way  to  it,  or  more  to  ward  it  off,  but  just  to  make 
nothing  out  of  it,  neither  anxiety  nor  sermons. 

Since  women  so  willingly  translate  their  sensations 
into  words,  and  by  their  talkativeness  distinguish  them- 
selves, more  than  we  do  ourselves,  from  parrots,  among 
which  class  of  birds  the  females  talk  little,  —  hence  only 
the  males  are  brought  to  Europe,  —  so  we  must  consider 
the  prologue  to  speech  in  little  girls,  that  is,  some  crying 
and  screaming,  as  the  overflow  of  the  future  stream.  A 
boy  must  digest  his  pain  without  water,  a  girl  may  have 
a  few  drops  after  it. 

Children  have,  in  common  with  weak  men,  an  incapa- 
bility of  instantaneous  cessation  from  what  they  are  doing. 
Often  no  threatening  can  stop  their  laughter :  remember 
the  converse  in  their  crying,  in  order  to  treat  their  weak- 
ness as  a  physician  rather  than  as  a  judge. 

§67. 

We  may  divide  children's  hurts,  or  crying  at  hurts, 

into  four,  like  the  four  feelers  of  a  snail,  with  which  they 

touch  the  ground.     First,  screaming  about  some  outward 

hurt,  a  fall,  for  instance.     Here  nothing  is  more  injurious 

*  The  parallel  line,  or  rather  parallel  zigzag,  between  our  corpo- 
real world  and  the  outer  universe  would  have  been  correctly  laid 
down  long  ago  if  the  great  changes  produced  by  the  weather  in  our 
bodies  had  not  appeared  in  the  loeaker  part  before  their  occurrence,  in 
some  along  with  it,  and  in  stronger  natures  afterwards,  so  that  the 
same  weather  makes  one  person  ill,  which  seems  to  restore  another, 
on  whom,  in  fact,  the  future  is  exerting  its  influence.  From  a  similar 
reason  the  mother  of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide,  the  moon,  was  so 
long  unknown,  because  they  followed  her  after  an  interval  of  hours  or 
even  days. 


SCREAMING    AND    CRYING    OF    CHIL-DREN.    119 

than  —  what  is  so  desirable  in  all  requisitions  to  the 
child  —  the  soft,  compassionate  mother's  voice :  the  com- 
passion of  another  joins  in  with  what  he  feels  for  himself, 
and  he  cries  on  for  pleasure.  Either  say,  dryly,  "  Cour- 
age," "  Be  quiet,"  "  It  does  n't  signify  "  ;  or,  still  better, 
repeat  some  merry  old  Da-capo  word,  "  Hoppa,"  for  in- 
stance. The  strength  or  weakness  of  the  child  must 
decide  whether  you  should  in  the  first  case  choke  the 
pain  by  an  absolute  forbiddal  of  its  outbreak,  —  since 
victory  over  the  sign  by  distraction  and  division  becomes 
a  victory  over  the  thing,  —  or,  in  the  second,  let  nature 
heal  itself  by  those  inner-home  methods,  which  in  grown- 
up people  are  exclamations  and  curses,  and  tears  and 
noise.  You  need  not  answer  me,  "  Very  common  ad- 
vice," for  I  reply,  "  But  of  very  rare  accomplishment." 
The  unaltered  course  of  old  counsellors  ought  to  produce 
an  improved  one  in  the  hearers. 

§68. 
In  the  second  kind  of  crying,  on  the  contrary,  that 
caused  by  illness,  the  gentle,  soothing  mother's  voice  is  in 
its  right  place,  —  namely,  by  the  sick-bed.  And  for  what 
other  reason  than  this,  because  the  little  spiritual  I  or 
I-let,  whose  place  it  is  to  govern  and  direct  the  physical, 
is  itself  attacked  and  plundered,  and  the  mind,  lying  in 
iron  chains,  knows  not  how  to  bear  "  the  order  of  the  iron 
crown "  ?  Here  you  must  indulge  complainings,  yet 
without  paying  more  attention  to  them  than  at  other 
times.  Maintain  the  spiritual  regimen,  even  if  you  must 
change  the  physical.  Children  in  sickness  are  morally 
distorted ;  the  sick-bed  improves,  the  sick-cradle  injures. 
No  sick  child  ever  yet  died  of  good  education.  But 
why  are  we  so  serious  on  this  point,  but  because  too 


I20  LEVANA. 

frequently,  in  private,  the  whole  education  of  childish 
humanity  is  only  made  into  the  nurse  of  physical  pro- 
gress ;  as  (if  the  expression  may  be  allowed)  men  use 
the  holy  breath  of  life  to  turn  the  sails  of  windmills,  and 
the  next  world  as  a  swimming  bladder  on  our  earth  ? 
Bad  enough  !  Every  unholy  thing  sets  before  itself  (and 
others)  a  period  from  which  it  will  first  begin  to  contem- 
plate the  eternity  of  the  Holy;  as  if  humanity  were 
attached  to  some  future  year,  the  twentieth,  thirtieth, 
sixtieth,  instead  of  to  every  present  moment.  Where, 
and  in  what  age  and  place,  will  the  fear  of  hurting  life 
by  the  strict  consistency  of  education  be  overcome? 
Think  always  only  of  the  best ;  the  good  will  soon  ap- 
pear. 

§69. 

The  third  kind  of  crying  is  that  used  to  get  something. 
Here  hold  fast  Rousseau's  ad\4ce,  —  Never  let  the  child 
obtain  an  inch  of  ground  by  this  war-cry ;  only  the  mis- 
fortune is,  women  are  never  to  be  moved  to  this  patient 
indifference  towards  screaming.  But  they  say  to  him, 
"  No,  you  shall  have  nothing  while  you  are  so  naughty ; 
but,  when  you  have  done  crying,  you  shall  see  what  I 
will  give  you."  And  does  the  little  despot  want  anything 
more?  The  greatest  thing  it  might  be  permitted  a 
mother  to  do  in  her  distress  would  be,  if  her  little  tribu- 
tury  king  were  young  enough,  to  bring  down  and  offer 
him  the  usual  tribute  and  exchequer  bills,  instead  of  this 
extraordinary  war-tax ;  i.  e.  to  grant  him  a  different,  in- 
stead of  the  required  gift.  But,  heavens  !  has  one  then 
never  seen  how  happy  a  child  is  who  knows  no  orders, 
and  consequently  no  foreign  stubbornness,  —  who  skips 
away  as  laughingly  after  a  no  as  after  a  yes,  —  who  by 
no   changing   arbitrariness    between   permission  and  re- 


SCREAMING    AND    CRYING    OF    CHILDREN.    121 

straint,  between  yes  and  no,  to  which  a  victorious 
screaming  fit  always  leads  in  the  end,  has  not  yet  made 
the  first  bitter  experience  of  injustice  ;  and  who  conse- 
quently receives  no  other  nor  deeper  wounds  than  those 
which  can  strike  the  body?  Mothers,  have  you  never 
yet  seen  this  happy  child  ?  Try  it,  for  an  experiment,  in 
one  point ;  for  instance,  strictly  forbid  your  child  of  about 
two  years  and  three  quarters  old  ever  to  touch  your 
watch  (though  rather  a  breast  than  an  ear  pendant), 
even  if  the  watch  lie  openly  every  day  on  your  work- 
table,  and  only  act  thus  three  days  together,  so  as  never 
to  contradict  yourself,  —  you  will  curse  your  former  "  for- 
feit-moneys." 

§70. 
Against  the  fourth  kind  of  crying,  —  about  loss,  from 
fear,  from  vexation,  —  the  imposition  of  some  occupation 
is  useful.  Or  thus ;  you  earnestly  demand  the  child's  at- 
tention, and  begin  a  long  speech ;  it  is  quite  indifferent 
where  it  at  last  ends ;  it  is  sufficient  that  the  child  has 
exerted  himself  and  forgotten  his  misfortune.  The  thun- 
der-spark of  a  harsh  word  is  very  good,  —  "  Quiet ! "  for 
instance.  Never  let  the  mind's  green  and  yellow  sick- 
ness,— ill-temper,  —  spread  over  the  whole  being.  Hence 
it  is  very  important,  especially  with  little  children,  never 
to  wait  for  the  full  outbreak  of  ill-humor,  but  at  once  to 
mark  and  repress  its  first  smallest  indication.  For  the 
rest,  never  put  to  flight  naughtinesses  which  die  away 
with  years  by  those  which  grow  with  years :  the  tears 
of  childhood  dry  up  before  the  sighs  of  manhood  com- 


122  LEVANA. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ON    THE    TRUSTFULNESS    OP    CHILDREN. 

§71. 

LONG  before  the  child  can  speak  he  understands 
the  speech  of  others,  and  that  without  gestures  or 
cadence  in  the  voice:  just  as  we  understand  a  foreign 
language  without  being  able  to  speak  it.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  this  chapter  is  placed  here. 

One  need  but  lend  nearer  objects  to  the  child's  faith 
{fides  implicitd)  of  the  elder  theologians,  and  the  word 
becomes  important  and  true.  If  the  child  have  in  his 
own  father  a  holy  father,  with  all  the  advantages  of  infal- 
libility, and  with  the  additional  protection  of  a  holy 
mother,  —  if,  retaining  the  discourse  of  a  stranger  at  once 
with  belief  and  unbelief,  he  bring  it  to  his  parents,  and 
ask.  Is  it  true?  —  if  to  him,  according  to  the  primary 
propositions  of  the  Wolfian  philosophy,  the  father  be  the 
proposition  of  the  sure  foundation,  the  mother  the  propo- 
sition of  doubt,  and  the  teacher  the  proposition  of  the  un- 
distinguishable ;  —  if  he,  believing  without  proof,  set  a 
pair  of  human  beings  against  the  whole  outer  world,  and 
equal  to  his  own  inner  world;  if,  when  threatened,  he 
rely  with  no  more  confidence  on  the  bodily  strength  of 
the  parental  arms  than  on  their  spiritual  power ;  —  if  all 
this  be  so,  it  reveals  a  treasure  of  humanity,  which,  to 
value  according  to  its  worth,  we  need  but  to  find  and 
behold  in  older  hearts.  What,  then,  rests  on  this  yet  un- 
measured faith  in  men  ?  In  the  intellectual  world,  nearly 
everything ;  and  in  the  moral  world,  at  least  as  much. 

The  intellectual  world,  it  is  true,  will  be  least  ready  to 


CHILDREN'S    TRUSTFULNESS.  I23 

grant  this  of  itself.  But  what  do  we  know  of  any  island 
whatever  which  a  voyager  discovers,  more  than  our  faith 
in  him  gives  ?  Or  what  of  whole  continents  ?  A  rough 
seafarer  by  his  testimony  governs  a  geographic  continent 
in  the  learned  world.  If  you  oppose  to  me  the  multitude 
of  witnesses,  —  although  few  distant  countries  have  as 
many  witnesses  as  a  testamentary  document,  —  I  answer. 
Even  out  of  the  multitude  of  witnesses,  no  weight  of 
probability  would  ensue,  if  the  great  faith  in  one  indi- 
vidual were  not  strengthened  by  the  multiplication  of  in- 
dividuals. Man  believes  man  more  readily  about  the 
distant  and  the  vast  —  about  former  centuries  and  quar- 
ters of  the  globe  —  than  about  what  is  near  and  small ; 
and  he  does  not  permit  in  a  stranger  the  probability  of  a 
lie  to  increase  with  the  facility  and  impunity  of  uttering 
it,  but  with  the  very  reverse. 

Thus  we  glean  our  Roman  and  Grecian  history  chiefly 
from  their  own  testimony,  —  for  we  ourselves  contradict 
the  Persians  who  contradict  Herodotus,  —  and  we  do  not 
make  half  the  difficulty  about  the  collateral  testimony  of 
a  thousand  other  witnesses  (for  no  historian  ever  experi- 
enced all  that  he  calls  to  Hfe  and  describes),  concerning  a 
succession  of  a  million  actions,  which  lawyers  do  about 
one  single  matter  of  fact  for  which  they  require  two  wit- 
nesses. What  gives  us  this  certainty  ?  Faith  in  human- 
ity, and  so  in  men,  and  consequently  in  one  individual. 

So,  further,  the  sciences  of  medicine,  of  astronomy, 
natural  history,  chemistry,  are  built  up  sooner  and  more 
extensively  on  others'  experience  than  on  our  own ;  con- 
sequently on  faith.  Even  our  convictions  from  philo- 
sophical calculations  call  in  trust  in  others,  to  aid  the 
probability  that  we  have  not  miscalculated.  And  where- 
fore does  an  irresistible  longing  impel  us  so  strongly  to 


124  LEVANA. 

the  opinions  of  great  men  about  the  foundations  of  our 
being,  about  God  and  our  own  souls,  but  because  we  be- 
lieve their  assurances  more  than  the  proofs  of  others  and 
of  ourselves  ?  And  how  does  not  intoxicated  youth  hang, 
—  like  bees  on  flowering  Hme-trees,  —  drinking  in  the 
spirit  of  a  celebrated  teacher! 

But  this  faith  reveals  most  richly  its  glorious  form 
when  its  object  is  moral.  Here  the  heart  is  refreshed  by 
true  bliss-imparting  faith.  In  the  intellectual  world  one 
trusts  to  what  you  say,  —  in  the  moral,  to  what  you  are. 
As  lovers  trust  each  other,  as  the  friend  trusts  the  friend, 
and  the  noble  heart  trusts  humanity,  and  the  faithful 
trust  God,  —  this  is  the  Peter's  rock,  the  fast  foundation 
of  human  worth.  Alexander,  who  di'ank  the  suspicious 
medicine,  was  greater  than  the  physician  who  made  it 
healing  instead  of  poisonous ;  it  is  nobler  to  exercise  a 
dangerous  confidence  than  to  deserve  it:  but  wherein 
consists  the  divinity  of  this  trustfulness?  Not  by  any 
means  merely  in  this,  '■ —  that  you  cannot  presuppose  any 
power  of  vital  danger  in  another,  without  knowing  and 
.possessing  it  actively  in  yourself,  —  for  you  may  both 
know  and  possess  it,  and  yet  not  presuppose  it ;  and  then 
in  dangers,  as  in  the  case  of  Alexander,  the  trustful  only 
is  endangered,  not  the  trusted.  But  herein  consists  the 
triumphal  banner  of  faith  in  humanity,  and  the  civic 
crown  of  heaven ;  that  the  trusting  must  forbear  and  re- 
main quiet,  —  which,  as  in  war,  so  in  everything  else,  is 
more  difficult  than  to  do  and  struggle,  —  and  that  faith, 
although  the  matter  in  hand  be  but  a  single  case,  yet 
beholds  and  embraces  all  cases,  a  whole  life.  He  who 
rightly  twists  shows  that  he  has  seen  the  moral  deity  face 
to  face ;  and  there  is,  perhaps,  no  higher  moral  gratifica- 
tion on  earth  than  this, — if  sense  and  testimony  attack 


CHILDREN'S    TRUSTFULNESS.  I25 

the  friend  in  your  heart  to  hurl  him  thence,  even  then  to 
stand  by  him  with  the  God  in  you,  to  preserve  and  to 
love  him,  not  as  formerly,  but  more  deeply. 

Therefore,  if  this  trustfulness  be  the  holy  spirit  in  man, 
a  lie  is  the  sin  against  that  spirit ;  since  we  place  another's 
word  so  high  —  even  above  our  own  —  that,  according  to 
Pascal,  a  man  to  whom  any  sin  was  ascribed  would  at  last 
believe  and  realize  it.  Plainer  maintains  that  the  weaker 
the  brain,  the  more  readily  it  believes,  as  is  seen  in  drunken 
persons,  sickly  women,  and  children :  but  the  question 
here  becomes  whether  this  (merely  physical)  weakness, 
which  affords  room  for  so  many  tender  developments  of 
the  heart,  —  for  love,  inspiration,  religion,  poetry,  —  does 
not  prepare,  though  at  the  cost  of  the  other  powers,  the 
true,  pure  loneliness  of  absolute  dominion  to  the  holiest  of 
the  perceptions,  the  perception  of  the  hohness  of  others  ? 
The  English  are  more  easy  of  belief  than  any  other  nation, 
but  neither  weaker  nor  weak  :  they  hate  a  lie  too  much 
ever  to  presuppose  it. 

§72. 

I  return  to  the  trustfulness  of  children.  Nature  has,  as 
if  figuratively,  richly  prepared  them  for  reception :  the 
bones  of  the  ear  are,  according  to  Haller,  the  only  ones 
which  are  as  large  in  the  child  as  in  the  grown-up  man  ; 
or,  to  use  another  simile,  the  veins  of  imbibition  are,  ac- 
cording to  Darwin,  the  fuller  the  younger  they  are.  Holily 
preserve  childlike  trust,  without  which  there  can  be  no  edu- 
cation. Never  forget  that  the  little  dark  child  looks  up  to 
you  as  to  a  lofty  genius,  an  apostle  full  of  revelations,  whom 
he  trusts  altogether  more  absolutely  than  his  equals,  and 
that  the  lie  of  an  apostle  destroys  a  whole  moral  world. 
Wherefore  never  bury  your  infallibility  by  useless  proofs, 


126  LEVANA. 

nor  by  confessions  of  error :  the  admission  of  your  igno- 
rance comports  better  with  you.  Power  and  scepticism 
the  child  can  sufficiently  early,  and  not  at  your  charges, 
polemically  and  protestantly  exercise  and  strengthen  on 
the  declared  opinions  of  strangers. 

Do  not  in  the  least  degree  support  religion  and  morahty 
by  reasons  :  even  the  multitude  of  pillars  darken  and  con- 
tract churches.  Let  the  holy  in  yourself  be  directed  (with- 
out lock  and  turnkey)  to  the  holy  in  the  child;^  Faith  — 
like  the  innate  morality,  the  patent  of  the  nobility  of 
humanity  brought  with  it  from  heaven  —  opens  the  little 
heart  to  the  great  old  heart.  To  injure  this  faith  is  to 
resemble  Calvin,  who  banished  music  out  of  the  churches : 
for  faith  is  the  echo  of  the  heavenly  music  of  the  spheres. 

When,  in  your  last  hour,  — think  well  of  it, — all  in  the 
broken  spirit  fades  and  dies,  poems,  thoughts,  strivings, 
rejoicings,  even  then  the  night-flower  of  faith  still  blooms 
on,  and  refreshes  with  its  perfume  in  the  last  darkness.* 

*  The  first  volume  of  the  original  German  work  ends  here. 


APPENDIX   TO    THE    THIRD   FRAGMENT. 


ON   PHYSICAL   EDUCATION. 


HE  expression  is,  properly,  false;  for  as  the 
science  of  care  of  the  body  it  would  equally 
apply  to  beasts,  strong  men,  and  the  aged ;  the 
cook  would  be  a  Labonne,  and  the  kitchen  a 
magazine  of  school-books.  Permit  me  here  to  insert 
some  observations  on  attention  to  the  bodies  of  children 
which  I  addressed  to  a  newly-mart-ied  man  shortly  be- 
fore his  wife's  confinement.  (Some  readers  will  not  agree 
so  theoretically  with  this  letter  as  my  three  children, 
who,  during  the  printing  and  distribution  of  the  first  edi- 
tion, were  educated  in  accordance  with  it,  practically  did, 
by  their  flourishing  condition.) 


You  may  freely  inform  your  dear  wife  why  I  write  now 
on  this  point  instead  of  half  a  year  later ;  namely,  because 
she  is  now  still  trustful,  but  will  in  time  to  come  be  as 
disobedient  as  possible.  I  have  known  the  most  intelli- 
gent women  who  have  really  assisted  and  followed  up  the 
wishes  of  their  most  intelligent  husbands  in  regard  to  the 
physical  care  of  their  child  until  the  second  had  not  yet 
arrived  ;  but  then,  or  at  most  when  the  fourth  came,  the 
dietetic  kitchen-Latin  and  medicinal  patois  of  the  women 
assumed  the  government,  and  nothing  more  could  be 
effected  than  one  or  two  propositions  without  results. 


128  LEVANA. 

A  woman  during  her  first  pregnancy  might  easily  com- 
mit to  memory  Hufeland's  "  Good  Advice  to  Mothers," 
since  in  the  new  edition  there  would  be  but  4hree  and  a 
half  pages  to  be  learned  monthly. 

But  Heaven  preserve  every  one  from  that  timid  over- 
carefulness  which  mistrusts  nature,  and  has  every  child's 
tooth  extracted  by  the  physician  or  apothecary.  If  one 
ventures  nothing  upon  children,  yet  one  ventures  them- 
selves ;  their  bodies  probably,  their  minds  certainly.  Only 
let  a  person  observe  the  rosy  children  in  lonely  villages, 
where  the  whole  Brownonian  apothecary's-shop  has  noth- 
ing in  its  phials  save  brandy ;  or  the  descendants  of  sav- 
ages compared  with  the  fading  Flora  of  noble  houses,  for 
which  every -day  draughts  of  every  possible  kind  are  com- 
pounded. 

However,  nowhere  is  Hufeland's  "  Good  Advice  to 
Mothers"  less  attended  to  than  in  the  huts  of  peasants 
and  beggars.  There  one  sees  many  little  pale  creatures 
looking  out  of  the  narrow  windows  when  one  goes  out  on 
sledging  expeditions.  But  they  bloom  again  with  the 
earth ;  the  open  air  makes  them  rosy  sooner  than  the  sun 
does  the  apple. 

Hunters,  savages,  mountaineers,  soldiers,  all  contend 
with  all  their  powers  for  the  advantages  of  fresh  air ;  all 
those  who  have  lived  to  be  a  century  and  a  half  old  were 
beggars  ;  and,  in  fact,  if  a  man  wishes  to  become  nothing 
but  old,  and  to  continue  nothing  but  healthy,  there  is  no 
more  wholesome,  /resh-air-imbibing  exercise  than  beg- 
ging ;  nevertheless,  mothers  believe  that  a  child,  placed 
for  half  an  hour  at  an  open  window,  inhales  out  of  a  town 
which  itself  is  but  a  larger  room,  and  merely  contains 
street  air  instead  of  house  air,  as  much  ethereal  breath  as 
is  necessary  to  purify  and  cleanse  twenty-three  hours  and 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  I29 

a  half  of  cavern  air.  Does  no  one  remember,  or  no  one 
remind  her,  with  all  her  dread  of  air,  that  during  the  mis- 
erable autumn  weather  she  travelled,  on  account  of  the 
war,  three  days  long,  with  her  infant  baby  in  an  open  ve- 
hicle, through  the  pure,  fresh  air,  without  any  other  par- 
ticular injury  than  that  of  being  brought  here  ?  Gould  no 
chemist,  by  visible  representations  of  the  different  kinds 
of  poisonous  air,  impart  to  the  mothers  in  towns  a  senile 
of  the  value  of  heaven's  free  air,  in  order  to  break  them 
of  their  carelessness  about  the  only  invisible  and  ever- 
active  element? 

Why  do  you  write,  "  I  fear  nothing  so  much  as  the 
procuring  of  a  wet-nurse  ? "  Two  of  my  children,  pre- 
cisely the  strongest,  were  brought  up  without  the  breast. 
But  if  a  nurse  is  commonly  healthy,  and  has  not  much 
less  given  her  to  do,  nor  much  more  to  eat,  than  during 
her  necessitous  solitude,  she  may  any  day  enter  your  ser- 
vice. Certainly  I  do  not  offer  myself  as  security  against 
any  mental  poisoning  by  her  morals  and  care,  any  more 
than  I  do  for  all  women  servants,  from  the  midwife  down- 
wards ;  an  honest  old,  but  good-tempered  man-servant, 
your  John,  for  instance,  would  be  much  better  for  a  child's 
heart  than  any  nurse  and  child's  maid :  just  as  at  a  later 
period,  for  the  same  reason,  children  are  more  spoiled  and 
enervated  in  the  friendly,  praising,  indulgent  society  of 
women,  than  in  the  cold,  dry  company  of  men.  As  re- 
gards the  physical  empoisonment  of  the  milk  by  mental 
excitement,  I  should  prefer  the  nurse  to  the  lady.  One 
often  sees  a  common  mother,  as  a  bombarding  ship,  or 
bomb-shell,  foster  that  kind  of  conversation  with  another 
woman,  which  is  the  only  one  in  this  world  that  has  never 
grown  wearisome,  and  which  men  call  wrangling  and  abus- 
ing; but  the  suckli«g  has  observed  or  cried  little  about  it. 
6*  I 


130  LEVANA. 

On  the  contrary,  a  lady,  whom  a  false  stitch  of  her  maid, 
like  the  sting  of  a  tarantula,  sets  into  an  armed  dance, 
may  poison  it  three  or  four  times  a  day.  What  concerns 
another  mental  poison-draught  for  the  child  I  utterly  deny. 
If,  as  I  believe  I  am  able  to  prove,  no  partial  transmigra- 
tion of  soul  from  the  mother  into  the  new-born  child  is 
possible,  how  much  less  can  mind  influence  mind  by  means 
of  a  nourishment  which  first  affects  the  stomach !  One 
might  just  as  well  believe,  with  the  Caribbees,  that  pork 
produces  small  eyes  ;  or  with  the  Brazilians,  that  the  flesh 
of  ducks  imparts  the  lazy,  awkward  pace  of  a  duck.  On 
this  principle,  goat's  milk,  and  perhaps  most  nurses'  milk, 
would  have  the  same  eflTect  as  that  of  Jupiter's  nurse, 
which  so  completely  transformed  the  god  that  he  may  be 
employed  as  anything  rather  than  an  example  of  many 
of  the  ten  commandments.  Bechstein,  it  is  true,  remarks 
that  otters  may  be  tamed  by  human  milk  ;  but  one  may 
find  a  much  nearer,  and  truer  cause  in  the  circumstances 
which  such  a  milk  diet  presupposes. 

Much  contention  may  take  place  about  the  relation  of 
the  mother's  milk  to  the  child's  body.  If  a  healthy 
stomach,  like  death,  makes  all  ahke,  potatoes,  bread, 
venison  steaks,  ship-biscuits,  ale,  insects  (crabs),  worms 
(snails),  and,  finally,  human  flesh,  into  the  same  chyle, 
will  not  the  stomach  of  a  child  be  able  to  reduce  its 
nurse's  milk  to  the  same  substance  ?  And  does  not  the 
child's  body,  in  all  its  organic  peculiarities,  as  frequently 
resemble  its  father  as  its  mother  ?  Why,  if  the  milk  (in- 
stead of  organization)  effects  so  much,  are  not  most  of  the 
nobility  giants,  since  peasants'  milk  is  often  added  to  aris- 
tocratic blood  as  wine  to  water  ?  Indeed,  on  the  ground 
of  the  influence  of  maternal  relationship,  there  would  be 
more  to  determine  for  than  against,  a  nurse.     The  body 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  131 

ceaselessly  polarizes  itself;  consequently  the  nitrogen,  for 
instance,  of  the  nurse  would  counterbalance  the  oxygen  of 
the  lady;  and,  on  the  other  side,  a  town  lady  would  be  the 
best  official  nurse  of  a  peasant  boy.  A  cosmopolite  tutor, 
and  diet  master,  might  go  still  further,  and,  in  order  all- 
sidedly  to  exercise  and  train  a  swaddled  child,  —  mummies 
are  swaddled  corpses,  and  helmsmen  swaddled  men, — 
insist  on  its  having  one  day  ass's  milk  (the  positive  pole, 
thesis),  the  next,  dog's  milk  (the  negative  pole,  antithesis), 
the  day  after  human  milk  (indifference,  synthesis). 

As  early  as  possible  determine  the  hours  of  eating,  and 
consequently  the  times  for  sleep  ;  only  observing,  that  in 
the  first  years  the  intervals  must  be  more  frequent  and 
shorter  than  afterwards. 

The  stomach  is  such  a  creature  of  habit,  such  a  time- 
keeper, that  if,  when  hungry,  we  delay  its  usual  period  of 
gratification  for  a  few  hours,  it  does  nothing  but  reject 
food.  But  if  its  hours  of  compulsory  service  are  appointed, 
it  works  beyond  its  powers.  It  is  only  in  later  years, 
when  the  sketch  and  colors  of  the  little  man  are  more 
strongly  marked,  that  middle  tints  and  half  shadows  may 
be  ventured  on  ;  a  child,  like  a  savage,  is  often  freed,  often 
made  a  slave,  by  sleep  and  eating  ;  the  physical  nature  is 
then  either  exercised  or  vanquished,  and  the  spiritual  is 
crowned  in  both  cases. 

Do  not  keep  the  tumult  of  daily  life  far  distant  from 
the  little  infant,  as  though  it  were  an  aristocratic  patient. 
If  you  do  not  actually  permit  the  fire-bell  or  the  discharge 
of  artillery  to  be  heard  by  its  cradle,  its  long,  deep  slum- 
ber in  the  world  will  so  harden  it  against  every  noise, 
that  afterwards,  when  its  ears  are  quicker,  it  will  yet  be 
able  to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  noise  ;  and  what  is  still 
better,  and  prevents  injurious  night-feeding,  it  will  only 


132  LEVANA. 

sleep  all  the  sounder  in  the  contrasting  stillness  of  night. 
I  earnestly  contend  against  suckling  in  the  night ;  for 
your  wife  ought  to  sleep  ;  and  it  is  quite  sufficient  if  she 
suckle  her  little  darling  shortly  before  going  to  sleep,  and 
tlien  again  immediately  after  wakening.  It  is  a  trifle, 
but  so  is  a  line  ;  why  may  I  not  give  one  to  the  other  ? 
I  mean,  why  do  you  lay  the  head  of  a  new-born  child 
higher  than  its  body?  In  the  months  preceding  birth 
the  body  actually  stood  on  the  head ;  I  should  think  that 
a  horizontal  direction  after  a  perpendicular  was  quite  suf- 
ficient ;  wherefore,  then,  create  a  new  want,  or  prevent 
the  subsequent  use  of  a  medicine,  which  the  higher  placing 
of  the  head  is  to  children  in  case  of  colds,  by  employing 
it  before  it  is  needed? 

With  regard  to  animal  food,  most  people  say.  Wait  till 
there  ai*e  teeth  to  bite  it.  Why  ?  toothless  children  take, 
with  advantageous  effects,  broths,  and  the  strongest  honey- 
thick  extract  of  meat  that  I  know,  the  yolk  of  eggs. 
Even  flesh-meat  is  less  to  be  objected  to  on  account  of 
its  size,  since  it  may  be  cut  quite  as  small  as  it  can  be 
chewed,  than  on  account  of  its  being  swallowed  without 
chewing,  that  is,  without  saliva.  But  children  enjoy  and 
digest  milk  and  broth  almost  entirely  without  previous  gas- 
tric juice,  the  saliva,  as  birds  of  prey  do  pieces  of  flesh. 
Probably  large  pieces  are  chiefly  injurious  because  we 
take  more  of  them,  and  quicker,  than  little  ones,  in  the 
same  time  ;  for  the  stomach  reckons  satiety  —  in  hunger 
as  in  thirst  —  not  according  to  quantity  (for  a  pint  of 
water  will  frequently  not  quench  the  thirst  as  well  as 
a  slice  of  lemon)  but  according  to  organic  assimilation : 
hence  of  no  kind  of  food  does  one  more  easily  eat  so 
much  too  much  as  of  what  is  indigestible;  because  the 
difficult  and  more  tai'dy  assimilation  delays  and  conceals 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  133 

the  feeling  of  satiety.  What  digestion  is,  no  physiologist 
has  hitherto  been  able  to  explain.  The  gastric  juice, 
which  is  said  to  excite  or  produce  hunger,  (is  there  any 
thirst-juice,  for  thirst  ?)  with  its  few  spoonfuls,  is  not 
sufficient  —  when  diluted  and  surrounded  by  a  bottle  of 
wine  and  a  plate  of  soup,  as  a  grain  of  arsenic  by  oil  — 
to  dissolve  a  Styrian  cock's  comb,  not  to  mention  an  early 
meal,  or  even  a  late  one.  The  gentle  animal  warmth 
which,  as  August  is  the  wine-cook,  ought  to  be  the 
cooking-wine  of  food,  is  cooled  and  deluged  by  cold 
liquids  with  less  of  disadvantage  than  advantage  to  the 
digestion.  If  the  stomach  of  men,  as  their  nature  in 
general,  works  as  an  ellipse,  with  two  foci,  and  so  not 
merely  as  a  membranaceous  vulture-stomach,  but  also  as 
a  fleshy  poultry-stomach,  and,  along  with  chemical,  pos- 
sesses also  mechanical  force,  I  do  not  understand  how 
a  pressure  —  that,  for  instance,  of  meat-broth  or  of  gruel 
—  assists  it  in  digestion. 

But  we  are  concerned  with  the  thing  itself,  not  with  its 
explanation.  Flesh-meat  seems  especially  useful  to  coun- 
teract the  weakness  of  childhood  and  the  superabundance 
of  sour  food ;  since  even  the  young  of  granivorous  birds 
are  fed  advantageously  with  eggs,  worms,  and  insects. 
A  slight  and  rare  surfeit  will  exercise  and  strengthen  the 
stomach's  power  of  endurance  :  only  do  not  let  the  beast 
of  burden  be  overloaded  with  easily  injurious  substances, 
such  as  eggs  or  meat,  but  with  things  of  moderately  long 
duration,  such  as  pulse  or  potatoes. 

Why  do  not  people  give  children,  at  times  when  they 
will  not  take  their  food,  sugar,  (as  distinct  from  confec- 
tions as  food  from  poison,)  on  whose  nourishing  substance 
the  negro  feeds  himself  and  his  horse  during  journeys  of 
days  together? 


134  LEVANA. 

During  the  earliest  years,  —  I  was  about  to  commence 
so  again,  but  without  any  reason,  —  for  the  strict  ordering 
of  Hfe  only  comprehends  a  period  sufficiently  long  to 
raise  and  fasten  the  scaffolding  of  life.  But  as  the  dan- 
ger of  death  diminishes  every  day,  —  it  is  well  known  to 
be  greatest  at  first,  —  growing  freedom  and  powerful 
many-sidedness  must  arm  the  child  against  all  the  two 
and  thirty  winds  and  storms  of  life. 

Tea  and  coffee,  as  well  as  cakes  and  fruit,  are  generally 
given  much  more  willingly  and  abundantly  to  children 
than  wholesome  wine  as  a  tonic,  and  wholesome  hopped 
beer  as  a  di*ink ;  whereas  it  were  much  better  not  to 
give  the  two  liquids  at  all,  cakes  very  seldom,  and  fruit 
abundantly  only  in  hot  seasons.  By  all  means  give  them 
wine  (but  not  any  old,  Spanish,  or  Hungarian),  not  out 
of  a  punch-ladle,  but  out  of  a  teaspoon,  and  more  fre- 
quently than  abundantly,  and  every  year  less,  and  in  the 
season  of  manly  strength  and  vigor  none  at  all.  Bitter 
beer,  at  a  proper  distance  from  two  meals,  is  at  once 
excitement  and  nourishment.  Afterwards,  in  the  eighth 
and  tenth  years,  water  must  be  the  drink,  and  beer  the 
tonic.  I  would  not  merely  allow  girls  to  drink  beer 
longer  than  boys,  but  always  ;  unless  the  mothers,  like 
true  Lycurguses,  forbid  growing  fat.  Thank  God,  my 
friend,  in  the  name  of  your  posterity,  that  you,  like 
myself,  do  not  live  in  Saxony,  or  in  the  Saxon  Voigt- 
land,  but  in  Baireuth,  near  the  best  beer,  —  the  cham- 
pagne-beer. 

White  beer,  without  hops,  is  a  slimy  poison  for  chil- 
dren ;  and  unhopped  brown  beer  not  much  better.  Those 
who  are  too  fat  should  only  take  it  in  water,  as  the 
Greeks  did  wine.  In  the  early  ages  of  Germany,  before 
tea,  coffee,  and  foreign  wine  ruled  and  weakened,  fourfold 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  135 

stronger  beer  was  brewed ;  then  people  did  not  dig  the 
bones  of  giants  out  of  the  earth,  but  frequently  consigned 
them  to  it ;  whereas  for  us,  under  the  government  of 
concentrated  tea  and  coffee  poison,  the  only  antidote, 
beer,  is  weakened. 

About  one  point,  my  friend,  (forgive  my  following  no 
other  order  than  that  of  yourself  and  your  wishes,)  you 
will  in  future  often  grow  hot  or  cold  towards  your  gentle 
wife,  at  least  I  expect  so,  —  and  that  is,  actually  about 
heat  and  cold.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  more  than 
one  excellent  author  has  much  prolonged  the  continuance 
of  the  honeymoon,  holding  it  to  resemble  the  year-weeks 
of  Daniel,  and  has  only  fixed  its  certain  end  after  the 
birth  of  the  first  child ;  concerning  this,  however,  there 
has  been  much  quarrelling :  partly  on  the  man's  side 
with  medical  reasons,  and  partly  on  the  woman's,  with 
her  own  ;  I  mean  this  in  case  the  child  is  healthy  ;  if  it 
be  sickly,  perfect  rage  ensues.  I  once  wrote  a  para- 
graph on  this  subject,  in  case  I  should  ever  experience 
the  happiness  of  forming  myself  on  my  own  principles 
of  education. 

Since  women,  like  a  bom  parlor  race,  or  household 
divinity,  —  we  are  merely  sea,  land,  and  air  gods ;  or, 
compared  to  those  domesticated  doves,  kindly-meaning, 
but  untamed  wild  pigeons, — love  warmth  as  they  do 
coffee,  and  so,  besides  covering,  seek  all  manner  of  warm 
wraps,  only  far  too  many  for  one  body  ;  and  would  rather 
have  nine  accumulated  veils  and  shawls  than  one,  though 
of  the  largest,  and  for  that  reason  lay  aside  furs,  how- 
ever warm  and  costly  they  are  ;  therefore  it  is  that  these 
mentally  tropical  beings  willingly  press  their  preferences 
and  necessities  on  the  beings  they  love  best,  —  their 
children.     But  does  not  Nature  herself,  at  birth,  make  the 


136  LEVANA. 

most  marked  change,  when  she  casts  it  out  of  an  organic 
bed,  which  she  herself  warmed,  through  the  air,  into 
a  lifeless  one,  for  which  the  child  must  be  the  bed- 
warmer?  To  w^hich  is  to  be  added  the  partial,  and, 
moreover,  injurious  uncovering,  that  of  the  face  and  head, 
after  the  previous  uniform  warmth  of  the  whole  body. 
Hence  the  question  might  be  mooted,  whether  the  head 
of  the  new-born  infant  —  so  hairless,  so  thin-skulled,  and 
unclosed  —  does  not  need  to  be  protected  by  warm  cover- 
ings more,  or  at  least  as  much,  as  the  other  members,  if 
many  men,  among  whom  we,  the  whole  congregated  pos- 
terity of  our  ancestors,  are  to  be  reckoned,  had  not 
hitherto  withstood  it  and  are  still  alive :  so  richly  does 
Nature  gush  forth  in  new  springs,  whether  you  close 
against  her  one  or  one  hundred.  In  the  mean  time  she 
receives  the  child  after  this  transit  from  the  hot  zone  of 
the  earth  into  the  cold  one,  with  two  invigorating  pro- 
vocatives :  with  nourishment  for  the  lungs  and  nourish- 
ment for  the  stomach, — two  hitherto  unemployed  members. 
Well,  then,  let  the  mother  imitate  therein  the  universal 
mother,  and  not  let  the  child  fly  from  external  cold,  but 
conquer  it  by  excitements  to  inward  warmth.  The  best 
fur-coat  for  children  grows  on  wine  mountains.  Joy  is 
the  warm,  sunny  side  of  the  mind  and  of  the  body. 
Exercise  is  the  third  non-conductor  of  frost.  The  new 
eulogists  of  warmth  are  only  in  the  right  when  they  are 
interrupted.  In  the  cold  air  of  a  room  a  child  would 
shrivel  up  like  a  plant  on  the  top  of  a  mountain  ;  but  it 
would  do  the  same  in  everlasting  heat :  the  strongest  men 
are  not  produced  either  in  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  the  equator  or  of  the  poles,  but  in  the  temperate 
zones,  which  alternate  between  fi'ost  and  warmth,  but 
with  a  preponderance  of  the  latter.      Do  not   let   any 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  137 

apartments  for  children  be  cold,  with  the  exception  of  the 
sleeping-room  ;  for  bed  is  of  itself  an  external  fur  cov- 
ering, and  sleep  an  internal  one;  and  what  additional 
warmth  is  possible,  in  case  of  illness,  if  you  have  already 
more  than  reached  the  degree  permitted  ?  If  you  allow 
your  future  Paul  (if  I  may  venture  to  choose  his  god- 
father before  you)  to  go  without  shoes  (which  would  be 
to  you  but  a  sa\nng  of  leather,  but  to  him  of  a  whole 
funeral  train  of  evils),  or  if  you  order  your  future  Pau- 
hna  (to  whom  he  will,  probably,  with  gentlemanly  polite- 
ness, permit  the  first  entrance  into  life,  for  most  first 
children  are  females)  to  go  without  stockings,  though 
soled  or  shoed,  then,  in  every  illness  where  a  warm  foot- 
bath is  advisable,  you  can  give  one  of  the  longest  duration 
simply  by  a  pair  of  shoes  and  stockings.  I  had  my 
reasons,  friend,  for  recommending  shoes,  as  though  they 
were  bridal  shoes,  to  your  Paulina,  although,  alas  !  along 
with  them  all  the  corns,  cold  feet,  thin,  tender  soles  and 
heels,  which  a  shoe  includes.  For  I  know  from  afar  off 
the  despair,  the  womanly  dread,  lest  feet  without  shoes 
should  really  grow  as  large  as  nature  intended,  and  so 
quite  beyond  the  conventional  size  of  a  foot.  Our  Chi- 
nese Podolatry  (foot-worship)  more  readily  suffers  the 
nakedness  of  the  higher  parts,  for  instance,  of  the  bosom 
or  of  the  back,  than  for  a  girl  to  go  barefoot.  Luckily  — 
in  this  case  —  a  boy  is  not  a  girl.  So  let  him  dance 
barefoot  through  this  young  world,  like  the  ancient 
heroes,  who  are  always  represented  with  bare  feet  If 
his  foot  grow  into  a  pedestal,  what  signifies  it  to  us  two 
men,  since  we,  and  even  rational  women,  inquire  so  little 
about  it  ? 

Why  do  mothers  talk  a  hundred  times  about  taking 
cold,  and  scarcely  once  about  becoming  overheated,  which, 


138  LEVANA. 

especially  in  winter,  so  readily  passes  into  fatal  cold  ?  I 
shall  answer  this  in  a  very  unexpected  way,  when  I  say, 
It  is  because  winter  lies  nearest  to  their  heart,  and  conse- 
quently most  in  their  eyes.  Winter  is,  in  fact,  the 
bleacher  and  fair  colorer  of  their  faces,  and  they  approach 
the  snow  as  a  new  whitening  material ;  hence  summer  is 
much  too  warm  for  them  to  uncover  their  necks  and 
shoulders  as  they  do  in  winter,  which  does  not  discolor 
them.  Hence  those  tender  chamber-covered  nursHngs, 
lily-white  and  lily-fragile,  come  from  the  north,  and  re- 
semble those  white  blades  of  grass,  which  may  be  found 
under  stones  in  the  midst  of  green  spring.  Certainly  this 
dazzling  winter-snow  does  not  bear  the  fruits  of  the  true 
blossom-snow,  for  which,  nevertheless,  we  often  mistake 
it,  as  we  do  beauty  for  strength. 

A  fortunate  accident  for  daughters  is  the  Grecian  gar- 
ment-fashioa  of  the  present  Gymnosophists  (naked  fe- 
male runners),  which,  it  is  true,  injures  the  mothers,  but 
hardens  the  daughters ;  for  as  age  and  custom  should 
avoid  every  fresh  cold,  so  youth  exercises  itself  on  it,  as 
on  every  hardship,  until  it  can  bear  still  greater. 

The  Unalasks  (hear  it,  ye  enemies  of  every  hardening 
process  !)  dip  a  crying  child  into  the  sea  until  it  is  quiet, 
it  necessarily  afterwards  grows  the  stronger  for  it.*  So, 
simile-wise,  the  present  naked  manner  of  dressing  is  a 
cold  bath  into  which  the  daughters  are  dipped,  who 
usually  grow  cheerful  in  it.  A  physician  should  always 
invent  the  fashions ;  since  he  cannot  remove  a  new  one 
except  by  something  still  newer. 

A  system  of  physical  hardening  is,  indeed,  mentally 
necessary,  because  the  body  is  the  anchor-ground  of 
courage.  Its  aim  and  consequence  is  not  so  much  health 
*  See  KanVs  Phy$.  Geog.  von  VoUmer,  3  B.  1st  div. 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  139 

and  prolongation  of  life,  —  for  weakly  and  sensual  per- 
sons often  grow  old,  and  nuns  and  court  ladies  still  of- 
tener,  —  as  a  fortification  against  weakness  of  character, 
and  for  cheerfulness  and  activity.  As  it  is  not  a  woman's, 
but  only  a  man's,  mind  which  becomes  more  womanish  by 
effeminacy,  it  may  easily  happen  in  the  higher  ranks  in 
which  the  men  are,  comparatively,  more  effeminate  than 
the  women,  that  the  weak  will  surpass  the  weakened 
sex  ;  and  men  and  women  have  the  delightful  prospect  of 
resembling  date-trees,  of  which  the  female  only  produces 
fruit,  the  male  nothing  but  flowers. 

The  present  fashion  in  dress,  regarded  as  an  air-b^th 
establishment,  might  have  its  end  more  perfectly  obtained 
among  children,  if  the  garments  were  occasionally  entirely 
laid  aside.  I  mean,  why  do  not  we  give  ourselves,  but 
still  more  our  children,  the  pleasure  of  playing  naked  half 
a  day  in  the  warm  air  and  sunshine,  like  Adam  in  his 
paradise  of  innocence  ? 

In  ancient  Germany,  where  our  ancestors  tasted  the 
forbidden  fruit  later,  and  consequently  hung  the  fig- 
leaves  later  round  them,  the  children  were  permitted,  as 
in  Egypt,  to  remain  ten  years  longer  in  nakedness  :  what 
spirits  of  physical  power  must  not  have  stepped  from 
their  cold  forests,  when  eighteen  hundred  years  of  warmth 
and  luxury  have  not  sufficed  to  make  their  descendants 
weaker  than  either  of  us  two !  So  the  wood  of  stripped 
trees  can  bear  a  greater  weight  than  that  of  those  which 
retain  their  bark. 

One  need  but  see  how  light,  active,  and  refreshed  an 
unclothed  child  feels,  drinking  and  swimming  through  the 
air,  moving  its  muscles  and  limbs  freely,  and  ripening  in 
the  sun  like  a  fruit  from  which  the  leaves  have  been 
removed.     So  many  children's  games  are  Olympic  and 


140  LEVANA. 

gymnastic,  let  the  children,  then,  at  least  be  Greeks,  that 
is  to  say,  unclothed. 

The  cold  water  bath  may  be  best  used  immediately 
after  the  air  bath  ;  if,  in  other  respects,  it  may  be  uncon- 
ditionally recommended  to  children  under  four  years  old. 
There  is,  however,  one  compensation  for  the  bath ;  that 
of  a  daily  dipping  of  the  whole  body  in  cold  water, 
though  each  limb  be  only  wet  in  turns  and  quickly  rubbed 
dry.  I  permitted  this  Anabaptist  sin  against  Brown  and 
his  followers  to  be  perpetrated  every  day  upon  my  own 
children :  the  consequences  were,  not  chilliness,  colds, 
and  weakness,  but  the  very  reverse.  Schwarz,  in  his 
treatise  on  education,  regards  the  dislike  of  a  child  to  this 
treatment  as  a  hint  from  Nature  ;  but  then  the  same  rea- 
son would  apply  to  many  medicines,  and  also  to  the  warm 
bath,  which  children  struggle  against  in  the  first  instance, 
because  they  feel  all  at  once  so  many  unaccustomed 
dehghts. 

If  cold  water  have  medicinal  powers  for  the  stomach, 
which  evaporate  when  warmed,  so  has  it  also  for  the  im- 
bibing skin.  After  air,  cold  and  warm  baths,  sleep  is 
beneficial. 

There  is  still  one  kind  of  bath,  hitherto  unused,  which 
would  be  very  advantageous,  both  to  parents  and  chil- 
dren,— I  mean  a  thunder-storm  bath.  Physicians  employ 
in  their  experiments  on  nervous  invalids,  electric  air, 
electric  plates,  electric  baths ;  but  thunder,  or  rather 
thunder-water,  they  have  not  as  yet  prescribed.  Have 
they  never  experienced  that  a  person  never  feels  so  fresh, 
cheerful,  and  elastic  as  after  a  warm  or  tepid  rain  has 
penetrated  to  the  skin  ?  Since  human  beings,  when  dry 
again  after  a  storm,  feel  so  much  invigorated,  and  the 
world  of  flowers  still  more  so,  why  will  they  not  receive 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  I41 

this  united  fire  and  water  baptism  from  above,  and  suffer 
themselves  to  be  raised  and  healed  by  the  wonder-working 
arm  in  the  thunder-cloud  ? 

One  ought  to  have  an  especial  rain  or  bathing  suit  of 
clothes,  as  a  frequenter  of  the  spring  cloud-baths  ;  and 
then,  when  there  is  promise  of  wet  weather,  make  a  rain 
party,  and  return  home  dripping. 

The  bath  company  must,  alas  !  change  their  clothes,  — 
the  only  thing  about  it  which  does  not  please  me.  The 
shepherd-boy,  even  in  the  cold  rainy  days  of  November, 
takes  no  chest  of  clothes  with  him  to  the  field ;  neither 
does  any  French  soldier  who  has  marched  himself  warm 
all  day  in  the  rain,  and  lies  down  at  night  on  the  cold 
ground ;  the  fisher  stands  with  his  feet  in  the  water  and 
his  head  in  the  sun,  precisely  breaking  and  reversing  the 
physician's  rule  ;  —  yet  the  only  hundred-and-seventy 
year-old  man  in  England  was  a  fisher,  and  had  previously 
been  a  soldier  and  a  beggar !  Heavens  !  with  what  a 
fair  play-ground  and  free  city  of  the  body  is  our  mind 
originally  surrounded !  and  how  long  must  it  have  been 
the  slave  of  sin  and  of  opinion  ere  it  was  condemned  to  be 
the  chained  helmsman  or  ship-mover  of  the  body ! 

Mental  all-sidedness,  which  means  all-powerfulness,  is 
not  granted  us,  but  physical  is  ;  now  let  childhood  at  least 
be  formed  for  this,  and  the  body,  which  can  inhabit  all 
countries,  be  exercised  in  accommodating  itself  to  all ;  as 
the  Russian  does,  who  imitates  his  own  empire,  a  minia- 
ture Europe  in  climate,  and  endures  by  turns  the  hottest 
vapor,  and  the  coldest  snow  baths,  the  extremes  of  hunger 
and  of  repletion.  Is  it  not  enough  to  be  so  pampered  as 
to  make  a  pillow  of  a  snow-ball  ?  —  and  now  at  last  we 
use  a  cloak-bag,  or  even  a  feather-bed  ! 

I  add  to  the  above  remarks,  that  parents  in  physical 


142  LEVANA 

matters  —  alas  that  it  should  happen  in  morals !  —  ought 
to  require  more  from  their  children  than  from  themselves : 
in  accordance  with  this,  let  the  rain-wet  clothes  at  ap- 
pointed times  dry  on  the  children. 

Would  that  every  mother  would  consider  that,  as  she 
opposes  inoculation  to  natural  small-pox,  so,  on  the  same 
grounds,  she  should  oppose  the  blow  of  accidental,  un- 
expected, and  therefore  unprepared-for  danger,  by  the 
favorable  hardening  of  versatile  childhood,  when  the 
choice  of  the  battle-field  is  so  easy ! 

Our  modern  women  might  more  readily  imitate  the 
ancient  Germans  in  every  point  than  in  this  ;  of  becom- 
ing ministers  of  the  art  of  healing,  and  so  the  midwives 
of  the  future  world.  If  I  were  a  physician,  or  an  impor- 
tant teacher  in  a  girls'  school,  I  should  consider  it  my 
most  useful  work  to  prepare  a  medical  "  Theory  of 
Doubts  "  for  women ;  I  would  therein  merely  ask  ques- 
tions, give  a  hundred  answers  to  each,  and  then  ask  them 
to  choose.  I  would,  for  instance,  lay  quite  undecided  be- 
fore them  the  theory  of  fever  in  all  its  infinite  variety, 
yes,  and  even  the  thousand  causes  of  headache,  the  inter- 
mixture of  which  so  much  increases  it.  Whosoever,  even 
in  the  cradle,  gave  attention  to  the  science  of  medicine,  — 
a  science  in  which,  more  than  in  any  other,  genius  and 
learning  should  form  one  indivisible  compound  being,  — 
would  be  astonished  at  the  boldness  with  which  any  no- 
doctor,  and  his  wife  into  the  bargain,  pronounces  on  the 
parentage,  name,  and  progeny  of  every  illness.  Good 
heavens  !  my  friend,  women  think  they  understand  some- 
thing, we  will  say  the  very  smallest  part,  of  the  most 
difiicult  of  all  applied  sciences,  that  which  is  applied  to 
the  various  mental  and  physical  nature,  united  undistin- 
guishably   in    one   organization  ;    whereas    whole   cities 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  I43 

would  thank  God  if  there  were  to  be  had  in  each  of  them 
but  one  graduated  man,  universal  doctor,  medical  coun- 
sellor, and  first  physician,  who  would  assist  you,  less  to 
heaven,  than  to  your  legs  again  ;  and  would  not,  as  if  he 
were  a  pope,  regard  every  pilgrim  on  this  earth  as  a  pil- 
grim of  the  cross,  whom  he  had  to  send  forth  to  win  a 
consecrated  grave  (if  he  deserved  one).  The  best  physi- 
cian is  a  prize  in  the  lottery,  the  best  medicine  from  him 
is  a  prize  in  the  lottery.  And  yet  every  woman  considers 
herself  to  be  both  lotto  and  lottery  ;  at  once  both  the  great 
prize,  and  that  fifth  in  order. 

Whence  comes  this  absurd  petension  to  the  art  of  heal- 
ing among  women,  —  and  let  us  include  ourselves, — 
among  other  human  beings,  myself,  for  instance  (whose 
whole  letter  proves  it),  and  among  men  of  former  ages,  as 
the  old  Latin  proverb  testifies,*  and  Eulenspiegel  also,  to 
whom  every  passer-by  prescribed  a  cure  for  his  tooth- 
ache ?  This  folly  proceeds  from  a  hundred  causes ;  for 
instance,  frjm  the  confusion  of  the  science  of  medicine, 
and  the  art  of  surgery ;  from  the  differences  among 
physicians  ;  from  anxiety  and  affection,  &c.,  &c.,  —  but  I 
chiefly  believe,  from  trust  in  the  proposition  of  a  sufficient 
reason.  Man,  a  cause-seeking  animal  as  well  as  one  of 
mere  habit,  —  however  modestly  he  may  listen  to  all  sci- 
entific things,  which  end  in  history  or  mere  information, 
to  all  histories  of  the  world  or  of  nature,  to  information 
about  measurement,  coining,  language,  arms,  antiquity, 
history,  —  this  man  cannot  restrain  his  power  and  insight 
when  any  scientific  theory  is  presented  to  him,  whether  it 
be  of  the  subject  in  hand,  of  nature,  of  morals,  of  taste,  of 
sickness.     The  peasant  gives  his  opinion  about  the  causes 

*  Fingunt  se  medicos  quivis  idiota,  sacerdos,  Judaeus,  monachus, 
histrio,  rasor,  anus. 


144  LEVANA. 

of  the  world,  of  a  thunder-storm,  of  sin,  of  a  performance 
on  the  organ,  of  bodily  pain  ;  for  in  all  these  cases  he 
draws  his  theory  entirely  out  of  himself. 

If  women  particularly  desire  to  cure  something,  I 
would  propose  to  them  besides  souls,  —  for  which  they 
would  be  better  soul-curesses  than  the  soul-curers  are, — 
wounds ;  as  in  some  Spanish  provinces  women  remove 
the  beard,  so  should  they  also  legs  and  arms :  their  hands, 
so  gentle,  tender,  and  apt,  their  keener  survey  of  what 
is  actually  before  them,  and  their  compassionate  hearts 
would  certainly  as  sweetly  heal  common  wounds  as  they 
make  those  of  the  heart.  Many  a  soldier,  if  the  female 
surgeon  of  his  regiment  were  pretty,  would  boldly  expose 
himself  to  wounds,  were  it  only  to  have  them  bound  by 
her,  or  suffer  his  ai*m  to  be  amputated  by  her  in  order  to 
give  her  his  hand.  The  blood-fearing  eye  of  women 
would  become  sufficiently  hardened,  though  not  so  flinty, 
as  that  of  men ;  as  the  Parisian  fish-women  prove  by 
wounds  and  blows.  Moreover,  at  this  present  time  the 
whole  world  is  forming  hardening-schools  for  the  feelings, 
—  I  mean  wars. 

I  will  only  add  a  page  or  two  to  my  over-lengthy  epis- 
tle, and  then  break  off.  Although  every  mother  plays 
the  doctor,  she  yet  constantly  requires  one  for  the  child. 
Then  she  wants  very  many  remedies,  in  order  to  try  each 
only  once,  and  so,  in  consequence,  not  at  the  wrong  time. 
Then  she  requires  many  doctors,  in  order  to  hear  and  to 
say  much.  And  many  even  think  to  instigate  the  doctor 
to  a  more  active  campaign  against  the  malady,  by  repre- 
senting it  as  worse  than  it  is,  and  concealing  the  favorable 
symptoms:  as  if  a  person  should  try  to  rescue  himself 
from  the  danger  of  drowning  by  screaming  fire,  or  from 
fire  by  the  distress  signals  in  use  at  sea. 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  145 

Meanwhile,  as  no  woman's  mind  will  suffer  itself  to  be 
deprived  of  a  physicking  finger  along  with  .the  doctor's 
ring,  nor  of  its  brains  as  well  as  the  doctor's  hat,  a  man 
might,  myself  for  instance,  remove  the  chief  danger  of  a 
domestic  practice  of  a  system  of  medicine  for  the  family 
circle,  by  a  few  general  rules,  such,  perhaps,  as  the  follow- 
ing :  —  Grant,  in  general,  for  instance,  that  most  illnesses 
are  asthenic  or  weakening,  —  according  to  Brown,  above 
eight  ninths,  to  Schmidt  the  full  nine  ninths ;  —  now,  the 
younger  the  children  are  the  more  asthenic  are  they,  and 
so  more  likely  to  die  from  sudden  loss  of  strength,  than 
from  sudden  over-stimulants ;  wherefore,  in  every  case 
you  may  prescribe  strengthening  domestic  remedies,  that 
is  to  say,  nourishment,  a  tonic  of  the  least  injurious  kind. 

The  heat  of  fever  can  only  be  allayed  by  what  the 
child  himself  fancies ;  and  still  less  must  it  be  strength- 
ened by  medicines  instead  of  nourishment ;  and  least  of 
all  by  food  instead  of  drink.  A  few  words  on  this  point 
may  be  allowed  even  to  the  laity ;  the  superior  excellence 
of  a  glass  of  wine  to  all  glasses  of  medicine  in  cases  of 
weakness  is  seen  in  grown-up  people,  in  whom,  after  all 
apothecary's  essences,  the  electric  spark  of  life  has  fre- 
quently been  rekindled  by  one  strengthening  bottle  of 
wine,  —  of  this  I  have  experienced  strangely  decisive  in- 
stances. And  many  things  might  easily  be  added  to  this ; 
wine  has  the  advantage  of  a  longer,  slower,  and  more 
constant  influence ;  whereas  the  tonics  of  the  apothecary 
assume  the  name  of  aqua-vitae,  and  act  Hke  earthquakes, 
that  is  to  say,  by  small  doses  and  long  intervals. 

I  will  give  yet  one  other  piece  of  good  advice,  the  very 
best,  to  women ;  that  is,  when  a  child  is  really  ill,  to  do 
nothing  whatever,  —  especially  nothing  new,  —  not  to 
change  a  moderate  temperature,  —  to  give  him  what  he 


146  LEVANA. 

wishes  to  eat  or  drink,  —  to  say  nothing  if  he  fast  for  a 
few  days,  —  and  to  avoid  all  domestic  recipes.  A  mis- 
take in  a  domestic  remedy,  giving  wine,  for  instance, 
instead  of  vinegai*,  or,  in  an  opposite  case,  fruit  instead 
of  eggs,  may  just  as  easily  be  the  cause  of  death  as  a 
mistake  in  a  prescription.  The  only  thing  I  would 
further  recommend  to  the  mother  is,  Dr.  Kilian's  excel- 
lent "  Home  and  Travelling  Physician,"  —  and  that,  not 
that  she  may  attempt  to  cure  by  it,  but  that,  after  a 
physician  has  named  the  complaint,  she  may  use  a  treat- 
ment in  accordance  with  it.  For  the  husband  I  should 
recommend  Kilian's  "  Clinical  Handbook,"  a  new  edition 
of  the  former  work,  enlarged  and  enriched  with  receipts. 
Both  books  will  be  sent  for  your  perusal  by  the  next 
carrier. 

The  gymnastic  instruction  of  your  Paul  shall  be  dis- 
cussed another  time,  in  some  six  or  seven  years,  when  he 
shall  be  born  and  have  attained  that  age.  In  any  case  I 
would,  at  least,  let  my  own  children,  for  weeks  together, 
climb,  leap,  swim,  run  races,  play  at  ball  and  nine-pins ; 
but  I  would  also  just  as  soon,  for  weeks  together,  let 
them  dig  Uke  a  burrowing  mole,  or  be  kept  quiet  hke  a 
person  recovering  from  scarlet-fever ;  and  this,  not  that 
they  become  well,  but  may  continue  well ;  and  in  a  cen- 
tury given  more  to  sitting  than  to  speaking,  may  bring 
with  them  so  much  sitting  faculty  that  they  may  not  suf- 
fer penance  on  their  bench  every  session.  At  least,  I 
would  exercise  the  strong  in  sitting  as  much  as  the  weak 
in  exercise.  I  would  also  rather  set  them  to  hard  bodily 
labor  in  the  evening  than  in  the  morning,  and  so  cause 
physical  exertion  to  follow,  not  precede,  mental.  Sitting 
and  thinking  after  violent  exercise  is  not  nearly  so  healthy 
or  agreeable   as   the  reverse.     Active   exercise   in   the 


PHYSICAL    EDUCATION.  147 

morning,  as  an  excitement  to  the  sluggish  early  pulse, 
along  with  the  greater  excitability  experienced  at  that 
time,  will  frequently  exhaust  for  the  whole  day.  The 
leaps  which  boys  practise  on  their  way  from  school  show 
the  bent  of  nature.  In  spite  of  all  these  reasons  I  would 
yet  do  the  opposite,  —  not  always,  but  yet  occasionally,  — 
in  order  to  inure  the  body  to  it. 

I  will  now  close  my  letter,  which  consists  almost  en- 
tirely of  postscripts,  because  I  constantly  intended  to  con- 
clude, and  always  went  on.  Fare  you  well,  and  your 
wife  still  better. 

J.  P.  F.  R. 

P.  S.  If  you  should  have  purchased  Dr.  Marschall's 
"  Instructions  for  the  Care  of  Mothers,  Children,  &c.,  &c., 
in  their  peculiar  Illnesses,"  third  edition,  two  parts,  —  be 
somewhat  mistrustful  and  disobedient  with  regard  to  his 
instructions ;  or  at  least,  let  them  be  first  filtered  and  re- 
fined by  some  Brownian  physician.  When,  for  instance, 
he  orders  a  lying-in  woman  to  have  nothing  during  the 
first  nine  days  but  sour  fruit,  saltpetre,  and  other  weak- 
ening diets,  he  does  just  the  same  as  if  one  were  to  lay  a 
person  apparently  frozen  to  death,  who  can  only  be  re- 
covered by  very  gradual  application  of  warmth,  beginning 
at  the  lowest  possible  degree,  in  an  ice-house  for  a  few 
days  in  order  that  he  might  recover  gradually  from  the 
cold.  Certainly  he  would  do  so  slowly  enough;  as  he 
would  scarcely  become  warm  before  the  resurrection. 


COMIC  APPENDIX  AND  EPILOGUE   TO   THE 
FIRST  FOLUME. 

A    DREAMED    LETTER   TO    THE    LATE    PROFESSOR   GELLERT,  IN 
WHICH   THE    AUTHOR    BEGS    FOR   A    TUTOR. 


UFFER  a  dreamed  letter  to  find  its  place  here, 
for  the  recreation  both  of  reader  and  writer. 
Few  men  have  experienced  so  rational  a  kind 
of  dreaming  as  I  have  done ;  —  whereof  more 
shall  be  said  at  some  future  time  in  a  revision  of  my 
treatises :  others  must  treasure  up  their  rational  waking 
thoughts.  I  was  obliged,  when  awake,  to  help  out  this 
dream,  even  with  some  changes  in  its  order,  so  that  it 
might  —  by  the  system  of  opposite  ends  and  aims,  as  well 
as  of  memory  and  oblivion  —  really  appear  what  it  is. 
For  the  rest,  I  hope  I  paid  it  sufficient  heed ;  for,  as  soon 
as  it  was  over,  I  employed  the  well-known  art  of  recall- 
ing dreams  by  shutting  the  eyes,  and  keeping  every  limb 
motionless.  Unfortunately  all  the  fancies  or  foundlings 
of  a  dream  —  the  enfans  perdus  of  the  imagination,  all 
the  more  truly  because  they  usually  carry  us  back  to  the 
days  of  our  childhood,  and  so  form  a  limhus  infantum  — 
have  this  great  fault,  that  they  shine  brilliantly  until  we 
awake,  but  then  little  or  nothing  of  them  is  to  be  found. 
At  least  such  is  my  case ;  and  I  hope  the  reader  con- 
sents. 


COMIC    APPENDIX    AND    EPILOGUE.         149 

"  Excellent  departed  Gellert !  I  want  a  tutor  for  my 
son  Max  ;  for  I  am  at  present  engaged  in  writing  on 
education,  and  consequently  have  not  a  spare  minute  to 
devote  to  the  practice  of  it ;  just  as  Montesquieu  found 
himself  obliged  to  resign  the  office  of  president  to  devote 
himself  to  the  '  Spirit  of  Laws.'  Since,  at  every  univer- 
sity there  are  pedagogic  engrossers  and  purveyors,  and 
fewer  subjects  of  instruction  than  accomplished  instruct- 
ors ;  and  since,  moreover,  you,  before  your  decease,  exer- 
cised the  patron's  right  of  appointing  tutors,  I  did  not 
know  why  you  should  not  proceed  in  it  still  better  now, 
not  merely  because  you  have  marched  forward  with 
time,  but  also  with  eternity.  In  the  extended  acquaint- 
ance your  immortal  part  must  have  formed  on  many 
planets,  —  (for  as  virtue  in  futurity  is  the  reward  of  vir- 
tue, so  also  heavenly  authorship  will  be  the  reward  of 
earthly,)  —  you  cannot  fail  to  have  ample  choice  of  people, 
and  candidates  i»  our  system.  Only  you  must  not  pro- 
pose to  me  any  tricked-out,  spurred  dweller  in  Leipsic, 
of  your  time,  clothed  throughout  in  beautifying  cement ; 
no,  not  even  the  late  Gellert  himself  (except  as  far  as  re- 
gards his  loving  gentleness  and  naive  cheerfulness),  1 
want  a  very  hard  material,  —  mind.  There  are,  unavoid- 
ably, so  many  born  harlequins,  shall  we  also  make  edu- 
cated ones,  or  both  together ;  stamped  yellow  pinchbeck 
pieces,  crawling,  cringing,  worms  ? 

"  Heavens !  how  is  it  that  I  always  find  something  good 
in  books  on  education,  and  so  seldom  anything  of  it  in 
teachers  ?  Wliat  have  I  not  seen  (jf  these  last,  Gellert, 
and  yet  may  see  in  any  town  I  please  ?  I  do  not  (be- 
cause I  will  not)  think  of  those  peevish  creatures  full  of 
child-hate,  those  living  aversions  to  little  ones,  —  for 
manly  justice  makes  even  a  false  system  of  education 


150  LEVANA. 

good ;  and,  to  give  an  instance,  nothing  is  so  dangerous 
in  icebergs  as  the  clefts  or  chasms,  —  but  of  those  sickly 
sweet,  honey-dewed,  sugar-of-lead  perpetual  teachers,  w^ho 
would  consecrate  everything  for  the  young,  even  the 
swaddling-clothes,  as  a  pope  does  those  actually  used. 
Oh !  I  perfectly  understand  that  tutor :  after  every  step 
and  every  leap  of  the  young  creature  he  will  sow  some- 
thing ;  and,  moreover,  be  most  anxious  to  know  whether 
the  mental  cherry-stones  which  he  has  brought  him  en- 
veloped in  their  sweet  covering,  will  grow  and  take  root 
in  his  stomach,  as  he  hopes ;  or,  to  use  another  different 
living  metaphor  of  enjoyment,  whether  the  frogs'  eggs  he 
has  given  him  in  a  draught  of  pond  water  are  developing 
themselves.  In  physical  matters,  says  he,  the  same  thing 
is  commoner,  but  injurious,  and  then  he  shortly  alludes  to 
the  lessons  in  which  he  also  teaches  it. 

"  The  tutor  stands  up  for  the  U  without  which  the 
child's  Q  cannot  be  pronounced.  '  Let  my  sermon  pre- 
cede every  action,*  says  he;  'the  man,  forsooth,  must 
strengthen  with  many  reasons  every  childish  action  of  the 
child,  and  shave  it  with  a  scythe.' 

"  He  who  has  seen  such  a  man  frequently,  though  not 
everywhere,  has  learned  much.  In  China  there  is  a  law- 
book, and  interpreters  of  it  too,  to  teach  the  best  method 
of  drinking  tea  genteelly.  But  the  above-mentioned  man 
would  wish  the  thing  to  be  done  improperly,  and  properly 
also  ;  because,  indeed,  he  finds  a  very  great  want  of  direc- 
tions for  children  how  to  take  coffee,  tea,  tobacco,  stones 
—  for  throwing  ;  hc'ftids  —  for  kissing  ;  and  cakes  —  for 
stealing.  It  is  the  same  man  who  chalks  up  the  ten  com- 
mandments on  the  study  door,  as  on  a  pillar  of  remem- 
brance, so  that  the  young  may  always  have  them  before 
their  eyes,  —  which  is  precisely  the  best  means  of  never 


COMIC    APPENDIX    AND    EPILOGUE.         151 

seeing  them.  Most  parental  and  tutoral  commands  re- 
semble the  inscription  one  sees  on  some  doors,  —  of '  Shut 
the  door,'  which  cannot  be  read  if  he  have  left  the  door 
open. 

"  Observe  from  above  a  tutor  who  chains  himself  to  his 
prisoners  ;  who  permits  himself  to  be  adopted  as  spiritual 
father ;  which  the  real  father  ought  to  be,  since  we  can 
indeed  give  instruction  to  a  stranger's  child,  but  education 
only  to  our  own,  because  the  one  may  know  cessation,  the 
other  must  proceed  without  interruption :  observe  him  and 
he  must  appear  to  you  (even  without  the  bird's-eye  per- 
spective of  another  world)  less  in  that  serious  light  which 
is  ustlal  above,  than  in  a  very  different  one ;  when,  for 
instance,  you  see  him  take  a  walk  with  his  auditory  of 
slaves,  endeavoring  to  turn  every  hill  and  stream  and 
knot  of  people  (in  themselves  nothing)  into  a  medium  of 
imparting  instruction  to  his  slaves.  For  as  long  as  the 
child  is  awake  he  ceases  not  to  develop  him ;  although, 
perhaps,  his  dreams  develop  him  much  better.  If  every 
Eastern  pearl  costs  the  hfe  of  a  slave,  every  Western  pupil 
costs  a  teacher,  and  something  more.  The  teacher,  who 
cannot  live  to  himself,  suffers  his  pupil  as  little  life  to 
himself;  and  so  they  mutually  impart  to  each  other  sins 
of  weakness;  somewhat  as  the  New  and  the  Old  World 
imparted  to  each  other  a  new  disease, — that  of  the  double 
small-pox. 

"  To  speak  in  figures,  departed  friend,  tutors  and  beg- 
gars mutilate  children  in  order  to  feed  themselves ;  only 
the  former  expose  the  distortions  as  curved  lines  of  beauty, 
the  latter  as  holes  and  chinks  in  their  living  alms'-boxes.  • 

"  Or  by  their  long  polishing  of  the  child  they  rub  off  its 
pure  form  ;  like  those  glass  dishes  in  which  curious  speci- 
mens of  glass  are  so  laboriously  piled  that  at  last  their 
original  depth  is  positively  diminished. 


152  LEVANA. 

"  But  should  this  be,  excellent  immortal  ?  Must  my 
good  Max,  whose  eye  and  hand  aim  at  power,  fall  down 
so  weakened  and  weary  ?  Must,  in  short,  a  boy  of  the 
nineteenth  century  be  blown  out  by  his  tutor  so  thin  and 
tender  and  brittle,  that  he  —  like  the  man  recorded  by 
Lusitanus,  who  thought  his  seat  was  made  of  glass,  and 
therefore  always  remained  on  his  legs  —  must  regard 
everything  about  him  as  moral  aesthetic,  intellectual  glass, 
and  so  not  venture  to  sit,  to  stand,  or  to  lie,  —  nay,  not 
even  to  be  ?  As  was  said  above,  dear  friend,  I  chose  to 
say  this  in  a  somewhat  figurative  style,  because  I  wished 
to  tread  in  your  footsteps.  But,  like  all  imitators,  (I  know 
that  too  well,)  I  must  retire  with  a  longer  nose  and  not 
much  shorter  ears ;  for  your  present  figurative  style  (since 
in  heaven  or  Uranus  you  are  near  the  greatest  objects  and 
worlds,  Jupiter  and  Hell,  and  have  them  to  inspire  you) 
must  be  totally  different  from  any  other,  even  your  own 
mortal  style ;  from  which  doubtless  it  is  distinguished  by 
bold  Oriental  imagery ;  and  you  will  say,  even  Gellert, 
naturalized  in  heaven,  writes  in  some  degree  more  wittily 
and  instructively,  and  no  one  there  speaks  dully.  For  the 
rest,  I  know  perfectly  well,  even  to  your  very  phrases,  the 
objections  you  will  make  to  me  against  the  influence  of 
tutoral  glazing.  For  you  will  find  an  anecdote  which  you 
have  read  in  Marville,*  applicable  to  the  point.  As  an 
instance  how  accurately  I  can  guess,  I  will  myself  relate 
it  to  you.  *A  young  gentleman,  a  preacher,  with  fine 
action,  voice,  and  so  forth,  mounted  the  pulpit  and  began 
his  sermon  ;  but  lo !  he  had  forgotten  it,  and  knew  even 
less  than  before  what  he  had  to  say.  However,  he  com- 
posed himself,  raised  his  voice,  (and  himself  too,  as  he 
hoped,  by  the  action,)  and  proclaimed  to  his  audience, 

*  Melange  d'Histoire  de  Vigneul-Marville. 


COMIC    APPENDIX    AND    EPILOGUE.         153 

with  rare  energy,  one  conjunction  after  another,  —  enfin^ 
car,  done,  si,  or, — and  muttered  with  falling  voice  all  kind 
of  inaudible  matter  between  the  particles.  The  poorer 
parishioners  were  excited,  and  in  the  highest  degree  atten- 
tive, yet  without  being  able  to  understand  much  ;  and  so 
they,  naturally  and  reasonably,  attributed  their  not  hear- 
ing to  the  distance  of  their  sittings  from  the  pulpit,  which 
one  part  of  the  congregation  supposed  too  far  off,  and  the 
other  too  near.  And  so  this  soul-curer,  with  his  connect- 
ing, passionate,  and  apostrophizing  words,  preached  about 
three  quarters  of  an  hour,  throwing  himself  and  "the  pew- 
occupiers  into  a  fever  and  perspiration  ;  then  pronounced 
the  Amen,  and  descended  from  the  pulpit  with  the  repu- 
tation of  a  true  pulpit  orator.  The  whole  body  of  hearers 
resolved  next  time  to  choose  their  seats  better ;  some  to 
sit  nearer,  some  farther  off,  so  as  not  to  lose  a  syllable.' 

"  Now  what  else  do  most  teachers  preach  to  cliildren, 
and  philosophers  to  the  sons  of  the  muses  and  their 
readers,  than  a  few  thousand  sis,  doncs,  cars,  without  any 
rational  word  attached? 

"  What  else  are  most  lessons  to  children  —  as  most 
men's  conversations  to  women  —  than  customary  marks 
to  pay  no  attention  ? 

"  You  now  know  what  kind  of  a  spiritual  father  I,  the 
physical  father,  wish  to  adopt  for  my  child.  Naturally  I 
only  speak  of  the  tutor's  soul.  His  body  may  just  as  well 
be  kneaded  out  of  the  earth  of  Uranus,  Saturn,  the  moon 
or  the  sun,  as  out  of  the  earth  of  this  world.  As  to  the 
soul,  I  wish  that  you  would  select  such  from  among  the 
candidates  out  of  the  present  ten  planets,  as  you  did  for- 
merly from  those  out  of  the  ten  German  circles,  —  which 
circles,  dear  Gellert,  since  your  removal,  have  almost  un- 
dergone ten  persecutions  of  the  Christians,  and  metaraor- 


154  LEVANA. 

phoses  of  Vishnu,  —  and  then,  out  of  this  selection  from 
the  planets,  choose  one  for  me.  You  will  spare  me  a  sub- 
ject out  of  the  leaden,  dull,  and  heavy,  selfish  Saturn ; 
who,  with  all  his  breadth  of  rings  and  abundance  of 
moons,  has  wearisomely  long  years,  and  gives  a  bad  light ; 
as  well  as  a  spring  beetle  out  of  that  merry  dancer  round 
the  sun,  Mercury,  the  domestic  Frenchman  of  the  solar 
system,  who  always  intoxicates  himself  in  the  sunshine, 
and  yet,  when  he  really  comes  before  the  sun,  only  looks 
like  a  black  spot.  Excellent  professor,  you  now  know 
everything,  and  many  things  much  earlier  than  we  do ; 
of  which  I  only  name  to  you  Pallas,  Ceres,  Juno,  and  the 
planets  discoverable  in  future.  I  will  have  no  instructor 
out  of  Pallas,  —  a  morsel  broken  from  the  earth,  and, 
moreover,  at  such  a  distance,  for  light  and  heat,  from  the 
sun  Apollo ;  I  purposely  mention  this  dwarf  planet,  be- 
cause your  preference  for  Athens,  whose  protecting  deity 
Pallas  was,  might  perhaps  influence  you.  You  must  be 
partial  to  nothing  but  the  next  world,  and  my  first  child. 

"  In  one  word,  I  do  not  know  any  distinguished  star 
from  which  I  would  select  my  tutor,  but  the  morning  and 
evening  star ;  and  so  let  it  be,  Gellert !  Much  might  be 
said  about  that  star,  —  its  double  name  indeed,  says  two 
things,  —  moreover  it  is  named  after  the  goddess  of 
beauty;  also  after  a  certain  fight-bearer  (Lucifer)  not 
light-destroyer,  —  especially  the  star  possesses  this  excel- 
lent quality  (and  many  others)  that  it  occupies  a  very 
perfect  position  in  the  heaven,  neither  too  far  from  the 
sun,  nor  too  near  the  earth;  and  that  (for  children)  it 
does  not  so  strikingly  wax  and  wane  as  the  nearer  moon. 
In  short,  I  consider  Venus  to  be  the  best  nurse.  And  so, 
I  beg  my  tutor  may  come  from  Hesperus. 

"  For  your  son  of  Hesperus  will  certainly,  I  imagine, 


COMIC    APPENDIX    AND    EPILOGUE.         155 

deal  excellently  with  my  child.  He  will  —  since  liber- 
ality is  in  every  case  inestimable,  and  why  not,  then,  in 
education,  in  the  first  place?  —  treat  him  with  practical 
freedom  and  power,  and  not  deprive  him  of  his  own.  He 
will  find  little  fault  with  what  is  childish.  Quickly  and 
perfectly  apprehending  what  is  outward,  what  inward,  he 
will  in  no  case  make  many  words  and  vast  preparations ; 
will  draw  him  on  to  what  is  great  and  universal,  not  to 
what  is  insignificant ;  will  rather  be  the  physician  to  his 
weakness,  than  the  extinguisher  of  his  strength.  He  will 
above  all  lend  his  aid  to  the  child  of  earth ;  and  shine 
before  and  behind  him  as  his  starry  dwelling,  Hesperus, 
does  for  the  earth,  and  that  only  when  the  sun  has  not 
yet  risen,  or  is  already  set ;  it  is  certain  that  so  wise  a 
Hesperid  will  not  attempt  to  help  the  sun  in  the  day- 
time ;  I  know  him  too  well  to  suppose  it  possible. 

"  Even  in  physical  matters,  he  will  not,  with  womanish 
anxiety,  be  perpetually  fearful  lest  the  child  should  break 
his  leg  against  every  twig,  —  though,  indeed,  the  break- 
ing of  a  leg  is  better  than  the  dread  of  it ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  children  are  themselves  careful,  owing  to  the 
novelty  of  all  their  experiments,  and  the  natural  magni- 
fying of  a  place  where  they  may  fall,  caused  by  the 
shortness  of  their  own  bodies,  —  or  lest  he  should  be 
poisoned  by  tin  soldiers  and  children's  trumpets,  or  hurt 
by  a  rocking-horse,  or  spoiled  by  wearing  trousers.  He 
who  is  so  fearful  on  account  of  others,  may  himself  be 
suspected  of  fear ;  and  a  coward  makes  a  coward,  as  a 
hermit  does  a  hermit  Our  ancestors,  old  Gellert,  grew 
up  sufficiently  strofig  and  modest  with  all  their  trousers, 
feather-beds,  saddles,  and  spices. 

It  would  on  another  account  be  particularly  agreeable 
to  me  that  you  choose  my  tutor  out  of  Venus ;  because 


156  LEVANA. 

there,  according  to  the  best  telescopes  and  astronomers, 
may  be  found  the  loftiest  mountains,  compared  with 
which  our  Chimborazo  were  but  a  mole-hill,  —  and  so 
the  purest  mountain  air  is  near  the  hottest  sultriness  of 
the  valley  (I  can  readily  picture  to  myself  the  heat  of 
Lucifer  or  Venus).  What  a  powerful,  manly  Alpine 
breast,  joined  to  an  Italy  in  the  heart,  must  the  inhabitant 
of  Phosphorus  bring  to  me  at  Baireuth,  in  the  capacity 
of  a  right  carefully  selected  tutor ;  who  must  resemble  a 
general  full  of  contrasting  powers,  of  irrevocable  strictness 
and  order,  sincere  friendship,  good-fellowship,  and  per- 
suasiveness. 

"  I  am  convinced  my  tutor  will  understand  me  when  I 
say,  that  as  the  man  can  do  without  the  scholar,  but  not 
the  scholar  without  the  man,  I  pray  you  above  all  things 
to  ingraft  the  scholar  upon  the  man,  but  not  reversed. 
Our  nineteenth  century,  (I  might  thus  speak  to  him  more 
distinctly  in  the  evening  under  the  warm  rain  of  punch,) 
whatever  century  you  may  reckon  on  your  little  planet, 
will  not  be  the  best,  at  least  not  the  strongest,  although  it 
may,  hke  yours,  deserve  the  names  of  Phosphorus  and 
Lucifer.  What  we  magnify  ourselves  about  is  the 
French  Revolution,  or  the  changes  of  something  little. 
The  stones  which  the  giants  formerly  hurled  became 
islands  ;  now,  when  islands  are  hurled,  there  come  but 
stones,  tombstones  and  grinding-stones.  The  Revolution, 
like  an  earthquake,  put  some  motion  into  the  skeletons  of 
a  charnel-house.  Tutors,  like  the  anatomist  Walther  in 
Berlin,  seek  their  glory  in  preparing  skeletons  by  remov- 
ing the  flesh,  and  then  bleaching  them.*  Brother  dwellers 
on  Venus,  or  rather  on  this  earth,  could  you  think  so  ? 
Then  should  I  repent  writing  to  Gellert.  To  impart 
strength,  and  to  leave  strength  will,  I  hope,  be  your  first 


COMIC    APPENDIX    AND    EPILOGUE.         157 

and  last  words  in  education.  What  is  educated  for  the 
age  will  be  worse  than  the  age.  The  Hesperid  answers 
me :  '  In  the  spring-time  of  childhood,  fathers  often  look 
in  as  far  as  the  distant  snow-white  mountain-peaks,  and 
point  out  the  winter  to  the  spring.  Far  better  the  wind- 
fall of  a  spring  storm,  than  the  snow-fall  of  age.'  As  true 
as  beautiful !  candidate,  I  reply.  Lavoisier  made  an  in- 
strument of  ice  into  a  calorimetre,  or  measurer  of  heat ; 
thus  fire  is  often  measured  by  ice ;  the  boy  by  the  gray- 
headed  man. 

"  The  candidate  will  animadvert  on  much  in  the  con- 
versational style  of  his  paymaster ;  but  I  go  on,  little 
affected  by  his  remarks,  —  *  Howsoever  I  may  express 
myself,  it  is  certain  that  the  artistic,  compound-fractured 
style,  into  which  writing-masters  and  tutors  would  break 
the  souls  of  their  pupils,  like  letters,  is  in  nothing  differ- 
ent from  the  compound  fractures  of  surgeons,  except  in 
the  case  of  wit,  which  truly  requires  variety  in  order  to 
find  without  restraint  distant  resemblances.'  The  candi- 
date replies.  '  If  only  to  the  innate  energy  of  a  child 
the  sap  of  life,  and  room  for  its  development  be  afforded, 
there  will  be  no  need  to  graft  on  every  branch,  to  cut 
the  leaves,  or  paint  the  flowers  ;  one  must,  like  a  king, 
direct  the  whole,  but  not  interfere  with  the  individual 
parts.' 

"  I  exclaim,  *  You  are  the  man  for  me,  (if  not,  indeed, 
more  than  a  man !)  If  the  tutor's  situations  which  I 
once  filled  were  yet  vacant,  you  should  be  my  vicar  in 
them,  —  but  you  shall  be  so  in  the  last,  in  the  one  I 
overlook  and  present  as  father  and  patron.  The  easy 
conditions  need  scarcely  be  mentioned.  You  are  not  to 
torment  the  child  with  a  thousand  languages,  —  for  merely 
to  learn  languages  is  to  throw  away  one's  money  in  buy- 


158  LEVANA. 

ing  beautiful  purses,  or  to  learn  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  all 
languages  without  ever  praying  it/ 

" '  I  agree,  with  all  my  heart ! '  said  he  boldly.  '  So  you 
will  only  teach  him  French,  English,  Spanish,  Italian  ;  — 
Greek,  Latin,  and  German,  of  course,  —  but  the  last 
most  thoroughly.  As  regards  the  sciences,  the  child  will 
be  fed  by  you,  as  its  young  are  by  the  house-swallow, 
only  on  the  wing,  —  not  attached  to  any  long  appoint- 
ment of  the  hours  of  study.' 

"  '  You  know  the  human  heart,  and  show  a  most  beau- 
tiful one,'  interrupted  he,  and  drank.  '  But  when  your 
usual  eight  hours  of  study  are  over,  and  the  child,  or  you, 
testify  any  further  desire  of  study,  you  may,  without 
hesitation,  take  as  much  from  the  second,  or  from  the 
last,  third  of  the  day,  as  you  choose,  and  teach  during  the 
whole  of  it.  Now  in  what  appertains  to  science  itself,  — 
for  the  arts  of  dancing,  fencing,  swimming,  riding,  leap- 
ing, singing,  playing  on  the  violin,  the  horn,  and  the 
piano,  will  be  recreations  for  both  of  you ;  it  will  satisfy 
me  if  the  poor  child  only  learns  history,  —  namely,  as 
much  of  the  past  as  is  already  gone ;  and  also  I  would 
wish  that,  along  with  the  most  recent,  a  httle  of  the 
piquante  future  should  be  insinuated,  together  with  other 
not  less  necessary  histories  ;  those  of  nature,  of  books,  of 
heretics,  of  gods,  of  church  history,  &c.,  —  in  the  same 
way  a  few  of  the  most  necessary  branches  of  knowledge, 
—  knowledge  of  the  stars,  of  coins,  of  antiquity,  of  her- 
aldry, &c. ;  and  the  doctrines  of  natural  science,  of  juris- 
prudence, of  medicine,  of  nobility,  of  morality,  &c. ;  and 
the  descriptions,  —  as  descriptions  of  the  earth,  &c. ;  a 
few  ics,  as  aesthetics,  dietetics,  phelloplastics,  &c. ;  for, 
say  I,  perpetually,  why  the  Devil  should  a  poor,  unbearded, 
thin-skulled    child  be  immeasurably  laden  with  learned 


COMIC    APPENDIX    AND    EPILOGUE.         159 

fat  and  refuse  ?  Why  should  his  life  be  interwoven,  not 
with  fair  white  leaves,  but  with  whole  full  books  ?  And 
he  himself  become  a  pack  and  baggage-bearing  Pegasus  ? 
Wherefore  this,  say  I  ?  ' 

"  You  have  to  do,  and  can  do,  much ;  for  you  are  a 
few  thousand  tutors  in  one.  Frequently  I  cannot  at  all 
understand  why  a  whole  regiment  of  tutors  and  govern- 
esses is  not  engaged  at  once  ;  especially  when  I  consider 
how  many  demigods  and  goddesses  the  Romans  ascribed 
to  children,  and  worshipped ;  for  instance,  Nascio,  or  Na- 
tio,  presiding  over  the  birth,  —  Rumina,  over  suckling,  — 
Edusa,  over  eating,  —  Potina,  over  drinking,  —  moreover, 
Levana,  —  Statilinus  and  Statana,  over  the  standing  of 
both  sexes,  —  Fabulinus,  over  speaking.  I  purposely 
omit,  from  detestation  of  prolixity  in  others,  many  half  di- 
vinities, such  as  Vagitans,  Ossitago,  Nundina,  Paventia, 
Carnea.  Could  one  so  ai-range  it,  and  pay,  one  should 
appoint  a  distinct  teacher  for  almost  every  faculty,  who 
should  direct  that  only ;  yea,  and  even  teachers  for  the 
various  subdivisions  of  the  same  faculty  were  at  least 
pious  wishes.  I  could  like,  (but  nothing  will  come  of  it,) 
if  I  possessed  that  army  of  various  teachers,  to  have  a 
son  exercised,  say  in  aesthetics,  according  to  the  different 
divisions  of  Krug  ;  one  teacher  instructing  him  in  that 
author's  Hypseology,  another  in  his  Kalleology,  a  third  in 
his  Krimatology ;  and  so  the  child  might  at  one  time 
have  his  subhme  tutor,  at  another  his  feeble,  at  another 
his  naive.  I  would  also  wish,  dear  friend,  that,  in  the 
virtues,  you  should  prescribe  special  private  exercises  and 
instructions  in  each  virtue,  so  that  they  might  not  all  run 
into  one  another,  and  the  poor  child  stand  there  like 
a  stupid  angel,  who  knows  neither  right  nor  left,  but  only 
what  is  right.     If  Frankhn  schooled  and  exercised  him- 


l6o  LEVANA. 

self  each  week  in  a  different  virtue,  might  not  the  various 
Sundays  and  festivals,  which  as  holidays  can  be  used  for 
little  real  instruction,  be  applied  to  the  inculcation  of 
many  virtues  ?  On  every  festival  might  be  taken  a  new 
one :  on  three  holidays  the  three  parts  of  repentance ; 
and  on  every  Apostle's  day  some  fault  might  be  eradi- 
cated. I  can,  indeed,  picture  to  myself  a  long  feast  of 
the  Trinity,  in  which  one  might,  hour  by  hour,  allow  the 
child  to  go  through  all  the  virtues,  so  that  at  the  prayer- 
bell  he  might  be  presented  as  a  saint  of  a  month,  or  holy 
image. 

"  Moreover,  so  excellent  a  tutor  for  my  child  might 
rest  assured  that,  were  the  good  Gellert  still  hving,  I 
would  with  pleasure,  at  the  end  of  his  engagement  (when 
Max  would  no  longer  require  him),  and  with  all  the 
influence  which  I,  as  an  author,  might  possess  with  Gel- 
lert, give  him  recommendations  to  him,  in  order  that  he 
might  further  recommend  the  young  man  ;  and  so  provide 
for  him  according  to  his  merits." 

At  this  point  I  awoke  ;  wanted  to  know  what  I  had 
dreamed ;  and  tried  to  recall  it.  But  I  soon  found  that, 
out  of  my  dreamed  letter  to  Gellert,  —  quite  in  accord- 
ance with  the  mad  order  of  a  dream,  —  I  had  fallen 
into  a  new  conversation  with  a  teacher,  who  was  there 
sitting  before  me.  Meanwhile,  such  a  conclusion  may  be 
in  so  far  good,  as,  should  I  print  it,  it  will  serve  to  prove 
that  I  have  not,  as  is,  alas !  very  usual,  dreamed  in 
sport,  and  for  the  sake  of  publishing,  but  in  very  deed 
and  truth. 


FOURTH  FRAGMENT, 

ON    FEMALE    EDUCATION. 

Chap.  I.  Jacquelina's  Confession  of  her  Education,  ^§  75-77. — 
Chap.  II.  Destination  of  Women  less  for  their  Husbands  than  for 
their  Children,  §§  78  -  80.  —  Chap.  III.  Nature  of  Women,  Proof  of 
their  Predominating  Purity  of  Heart,  §§  81  -  88.  —  Chap.  IV.  Edu- 
cation of  Girls  in  Kegard  to  Eeasonableness,  §§  89,  90;  to  Purity 
of  Heart  and  Love  of  their  own  Sex,  §  91 ;  to  Gentleness,  and  the 
Tendency  to  Female  Passionateness,  §  92;  to  Economy  of  Living 
and  Domestic  Affairs,  §§  93-95;  to  Knowledge  and  Skill,  §§  96,  97; 
to  Dress,  Ornament,  &c.,  §  98;  to  Cheerfulness,  §  99;  Education  of 
Girls  endowed  with  Genius,  §  100.  —  Chap.  V.  Private  Instructions 
of  a  Prince  to  the  head  Governess  of  his  Daughter,  §  101. 

CHAPTER   I. 


§75. 

UNDERSTAND  under  female  education 
three  things  at  once,  which  are  in  themselves 
contradictory :  first,  the  education  which  wo- 
men generally  give ;  second,  their  peculiar 
call  to  a  right  education  as  compared  with  men  ;  third, 
the  education  of  girls. 

The  first  and  second  would  have  required  an  earlier 
consideration,  if  the  characteristics  of  the  female  sex, 
according  to  which  its  education  should  be  regulated, 
were  not  unite^l  in  them  both  ;  and,  especially,  if  in  this 


l62  LEVANA. 

little  experimental  work,  it  were  necessary  to  arrange  the 
position  of  its  matter  in  very  strict  order.  A  reader,  to 
whom  so  many  systems  are  presented,  must  hold  his  way 
armed  with  a  predetermined  one,  unless  each  is  to  occupy 
his  mind  in  turn. 

§76.   ■ 

Ill-educated,  and  ill-educating  states,  as  well  as  fathers 
immersed  in  business,  can  only  trust  the  welfare  of  edu- 
cation to  mothers,  as  the  second  chapter  shall  show  ;  but 
the  evil  that  mothers  might  obviate  can  be  easily  stated 
in  this  paragraph.  Were  it  in  other  respects  accordant 
with  the  tone  of  this  work,  I  willingly  confess  that  I 
would  offer  to  the  world  in  a  merrier  manner  this  little 
register  of  sins,  or  list  of  losses  in  gaming,  and  debts  of 
honor ;  and  the  more  so  because,  in  this  very  case,  a  cer- 
tain, otherwise  excellent,  mother  of  five  children,  Mad- 
ame Jacquelina,  luckily  turning  over  th«  pages  of  my 
Levana,  offered  to  give  me  an  airy  embodiment  of  it. 
Ladies  love  to  dress,  undress,  and  redress.  For  as  I  had 
known  my  excellent  friend  a  long  time,  much  was  pre- 
pared and  made  easy ;  and  1  could  well  imagine  that 
the  fair  Jacquelina,  as  sister-orator  for  her  whole  sex,  — 
though  without  any  other  commission  to  show  than  her 
beauty,  —  would  stand  before  my  writing-desk,  as  though 
it  were  a  confessional,  and  declare  she  heartily  desired 
to  be  absolved  by  me ;  only,  for  very  shame's  sake,  it 
was  impossible  for  her  to  make  an  auricular  confession, 
but  she  would  take  it  very  kindly  if  I  would  regard  her 
as  a  deaf  person,  —  after  the  fashion  of  former  confes- 
sors who  pronounced  the  confession  of  then*  fair  deaf 
and  dumb  penitents  over  them,  —  and  so,  as  her  repre- 
sentative, and  spiritual  father,  make  the  following  con- 
fession for  her :  — 


ON    FEMALE    EDUCATION.  163 

§77. 

"  Honorable  and  dear  Sir ! "  (I  was  thus  to  put  the 
address  to  me  into  her  own  mouth,  lest  the  joke  should  be 
continued,)  "  I  confess  before  God  and  yourself,  that  I 
am  a  poor  pedagogic  sinner,  and  have  broken  many  com- 
mands of  Rousseau  and  of  Campe.  I  confess  that  I 
never  truly  carried  out  any  one  principle  for  a  month, 
but  only  for  an  hour  or  two ;  that  I  have  often,  half 
with  thought,  and  so  half  without  thought,  forbidden  my 
children  to  do  something,  without  afterwards  observing 
whether  they  did  it  or  not ;  that  I  never  could  deny 
them  anything,  when  both  they  and  I  were  floating  in 
the  midst  of  a  sea  of  happiness,  which  else,  from  calm 
reason,  I  should  have  at  once  refused ;  and  that  precisely 
at  two  seasons,  the  most  sunshiny  and  the  most  cloudy, 
whether  of  myself  or  of  the  children,  did  I  spoil  them 
most.  Have  I  not  even  done  still  worse  ?  Have  I 
not,  when  strangers  were  present,  said  to  my  Bella,  as 
well  as  to  my  pet,  (I  mean  by  that  only  my  poodle,) 
Faites  la  belle  "^ 

"  Have  I  not,  at  each  of  our  great  fairs,  given  holi- 
days on  account  of  strangers'  visits,  especially  those  of 
eminent  frequenters  of  the  fair,  to  my  husband,  and  thus 
valued  a  visitor  more  highly  thaii  five  children ;  so  that 
I  very  little  resembled  that  German  woman,  of  whom 
my  husband  read  in  the  twelfth  volume  of  the  mental 
Fama,  who  had  the  courage  to  decline  dancing  with  two 
kings  on  the  same  evening,  because  she  considered  it  to 
be  unchristian  ?  And  during  all  last  year  did  I  not 
see  my  two  youngest  children,  Josephine  and  Peter,  only 
once  a  day,  at  breakfast,  and  that  merely  because  I 
wanted  to  finish  a  novel  and  a  piece  of  worsted-work ; 
and,  also,   because   my   noble   friend,  the   princess,   for 


164  LEVANA. 

whom  I  was  working  it,  had  taken  up  her  residence 
here  ?  Only  this  consideration  can  tranquilHze  my  con- 
science, that  I  took  the  greatest  trouble  to  procure  a 
trustworthy  nurse  for  my  little  ones,  who  promised  me 
to  treat  them  as  a  real  mother  ;  and  may  Heaven  punish 
her  if  she  was  ever  inattentive  to  so  dear  a  trust,  or  ever 
let  my  precious  lambs  go  out  of  her  sight  for  a  moment, 
or  ever  left  them  in  the  hands  of  strangers  !  Ah,  God ! 
when  I  think  of  the  possibihty  of  such  a  thing !  But, 
alas  !  what  do  such  creatures  know  of  the  anxieties  of 
a  tender  mother's  heart? 

"  At  other  times  I  have  indeed  (and  that  consoles  me) 
always  allowed  all  my  children  to  come  to  me  twice  a 
day,  after  breakfast  and  after  dinner,  and  have  then  often 
for  hours  fondled  and  taught  them.  But  I  confess  that 
my  impetuosity  would  never  let  me  be  satisfied  to  kiss 
them  in  moderation,  and  so  I  drew  on  me  my  husband's 
blame,  who  dislikes  that  exceedingly,  and  says,  '  Children 
(even  if  not  my  own)  may,  with  the  Princess  of  Cond^, 
lament  that  their  misfortune  is  to  be  loved  by  old  people, 
— the  holy  seal  of  the  heart,  a  kiss,  is  to  children  an 
empty,  meaningless  thing ;  a  very  energetic  one  may 
even  be  painful,  and  perhaps  injurious,  to  the  fifth  pair 
of  nerves  in  the  lips,  —  a  gentle  stroking  of  the  head  is 
better,  and  a  gentle  loving  word,  a  kiss  which  they  give, 
and  a  softer  one  which  they  receive.' 

"  I  confess  that,  as  in  the  game  of  forfeits,  when  I 
asked  myself,  What  shall  this  forfeit  (that  of  love)  which 
I  hold  in  my  hand  do  ?  I  always  answered,  Love  me 
immeasurably.  Whereby,  because  I  required  so  many 
marks  of  love,  I  have  made  Josephine  too  sensitive, 
Sophia  hypocritical,  and  Peter  ill-tempered.  After  any 
severe   punishment   I  inflicted,  instead  of   allowing    the 


ON    FEMALE    EDUCATION.  165 

whole  of  my  former  love  to  glow  warmly  on  them, 
(a  striking  change,  which  my  husband  says  is  the  only 
means  of  correcting  and  reconciling  a  child,  during  at 
least  the  first  eight  or  ten  years,)  I  suffered  the  long  cloud 
of  after-wrath  to  hang  over  them ;  as  if  their  young 
hearts  could  trace  hidden  love,  or  suffer  for  it  long,  or, 
in  the  best  case,  not  learn  to  imitate  that  sulkiness. 

"  I  confess  that,  though  not  in  the  least  nervous  at 
whatever  may  happen  out  of  the  house,  I  yet  never  could 
be  tranquil  with  my  dear  children,  although  I  knew  that 
the  least  impetuosity,  were  it  even  of  a  hasty  running  to 
their  assistance,  is  injurious,  and  has  a  tendency  to  pro- 
duce a  similar  disposition  in  them.  And  I  confess  that 
I  show  anger  too  soon,  even  towards  my  maid-servants, 
in  spite  of  my  knowing  perfectly  what  my  husband  so 
beautifully  says,  that  to  give  way  to  an  angry  expression 
of  countenance  or  of  voice,  before  even  the  youngest 
children,  is  in  fact  to  teach  them  anger.  For  as  the 
whole  soul  is  imprisoned  and  moulded  into  the  whole 
body,  it  follows  that  every  mental  is  connected  with  some 
physical  part,  and  thus  these  mutually  excite  each  other, 
—  the  outward  expression  of  passion  produces  the  mental 
emotion,  and  so  of  the  reverse. 

"  My  husband  asserted,  and,  moreover,  carried  out,  the 
principle,  that  a  husband  can  never  so  well  establish  a 
normal  school  for  female  teachers  (like  a  good  wife,  I  use 
his  very  expressions)  as  during  the  first  year  after  mar- 
riage ;  in  this  time,  he  thought,  a  wife  might  be  mentally 
enriched  with  every  kind  of  manly  instruction,  which, 
should  she  afterwards  neglect,  she  would  yet  seek  and 
cherish  for  the  love  of  her  first  child,  and  of  him  who  is 
even  before  the  first,  her  husband ;  for  at  an  after  period, 
continued    he,   somewhat   of   that  glowing   love-service 


l66  LEVANA. 

towards  the  husband,  and  somewhat,  also,  of  tliat  anxious 
solicitude  about  the  children,  vanishes ;  and  so,  still  con- 
tinued he,  the  education  of  many  children  does  not  pro- 
ceed better,  at  least,  not  more  carefully.  But  I  rejoice 
that  I  have  confuted  him  in  this,  as  in  many  other  things, 
and  that  I  brought  up  my  third  child,  even  while  expect- 
ing the  fourth,  for  several  months  precisely  as  my  wedded 
lord  and  schoolmaster  directed  during  the  school-weeks  of 
the  honeymoon. 

"  But,  venerable  father,  you  certainly  do  not  know  by 
experience  what  whims  husbands  take  some  nine  or  ten 
months  after  mai'riage.  Did  not  mine  positively,  seriously 
desire,  that  when  I  occasionally  washed  the  httle  thing  I 
would  not  rub  its  face,  and  wipe  it  quickly  up  and  down ; 
because,  said  he,  this  kind  of  violence  is  disagreeable  to 
them  and  excites  their  passion ;  but  that  I  would  softly 
glide  from  above  downwards,  and  then  gently  round  ? 
What  ridiculous  pedantry  !  Surely  a  woman  must  know 
how  to  wash !  So  I  go  on  just  as  usual,  and  care  not  how 
loudly  both  little  and  big  cry  out  against  it. 

"  For  the  rest,  I  confess,  and  would  willingly  do  penance 
for  it,  that  I  am  never  so  soon  angry  as  when  dressing, 
or  engaged  in  any  other  important  business :  the  beauti- 
ful, perfect  repose  of  my  education  then  vanishes.  My 
husband  wants  to  place,  for  penance  and  the  removal  of 
my  angry  wrinkles,  a  magnifying-glass  beside  my  toilet- 
glass  ;  but,  thank  God !  I  do  not  yet  need  such  a  glass 
of  detraction ;  and  besides  my  features  are  less  changed 
than  my  color.  Perhaps  I  am  excusable  for  admitting 
my  three  eldest  girls  (and  Lucy,  too,  often)  to  my  toilet, 
because,  in  the  first  place,  they  watch  me  so  gladly  and 
are  so  quiet  (especially  when  I  tell  them  that  they  may 
perhaps  go  with  me),  and  because,  secondly,  a  young 


ON    FEMALE    EDUCATION.  167 

girl's  eye  is  best  exercised  in  taste,  with  regard  to  matters 
of  dress,  on  the  costume  of  a  grown-up  person. 

"  It  consoles  me,  however,  to  reflect,  that  I  never  pur- 
chased a  handsome  new  article  of  dress,  either  for  myself 
or  my  daughters,  without  laboring  to  repress  the  love 
of  finery,  by  telUng  them  how  little  a  woman's  worth 
depends  on  dress,  and  that  a  rich  habit  is  only  chosen 
because  thereby  alone  can  rank  be  shown.  At  the  same 
time  I  must  confess,  that  all  my  daughters  are  vain : 
however  many  sermons  I  make  to  them  during  my  toilet, 
I  am  not  listened  to,  but  only  looked  at.  How  often  do 
I  turn  round  with  reproaches  when  my  really  beautiful 
Maximiliana  stands  behind  me  peeping  into  the  glass, 
and  say,  '  There,  again,  a  pretty,  rosy,  blue-eyed  mask  is 
looking  at  herself,  and  can  never  be  tired  of  peeping  and 
staring.* 

"  I  further  confess,  worthy  Sir,  that  I  was  certainly  in- 
finitely more  displeased  with  Peter  when  he  lately  threw 
Veritas  (really  a  most  exquisite  ideal  figure  from  Ber- 
tuch's  repository  of  arts)  out  of  the  window,  than  if  he  had 
told  ten  lies ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  hope  I  remain  per- 
fectly tranquil  when  my  husband  sometimes  makes  such 
an  uproar  about  some  little  fibs  or  other  the  children  may 
have  been  telling ;  or  about  their  frequently  quite  justi- 
fiable scoldings  of  the  servants :  then,  says  he,  reflecting 
on  my  anger,  '  The  Romans  did  wisely  when  they  wrote 
the  initial  letter  of  the  word  signifying  man  inverted  to 
mean  woman.' 

"  If  God  will  only  forgive  me  the  sins  wherein  I  meant 
well,  I  shall  be  satisfied  to  be  punished  for  the  rest.  I 
certainly  have  sinned  much,  and  deserved  temporal  pun- 
ishments, and  bad  children.  I  will,  however,  from  this 
time  forth  amend  my  educational  life,  and  become  better 


l68  LEVANA. 

and  better  ;  and  I  entreat  you,  reverend,  dear  Sir,  to  for- 
give me  my  sins  in  God's  stead."  In  which  case  I 
should  certainly  lay  my  hand  on  Jacquelina's  round,  white 
shoulder,  and  readily  absolve  her  past,  though  truly  not 
her  future  sins. 

§  78. 
But  the  seriousness  of  the  subject  demands  that  a 


SECOND    CHAPTER, 

ON   THE    DESTINATION    OF   THE    FEMALE    SEX, 

SHOULD  restore  to  it  its  due  honor.  A  father,  who 
only  sees  and  educates  his  children  for  an  hour  or 
two,  must  be  careful  not  to  require  his  own  hour's  strict 
attention  and  persistency  from  the  mother,  who  wearies 
herself  with  them  all  day  long.  This  longer  companion- 
ship excuses  much  maternal  overflowing,  both  of  love  and 
anger.  In  the  same  -way,  a  stranger  always  considers 
parental  displeasure  too  severe,  because  he  sees  the  fault 
for  the  first  time,  and  isolated,  which  the  parents  behold 
for  the  thousandth  time,  and  in  an  ever-strengthening 
chain  of  habit.  Mothers  readily  acquire  an  over-estima- 
tion of  their  children,  because,  placed  sufiiciently  near  the 
development  of  their  minds  to  count  every  new  leaf,  they 
regard  each  universal  human  growth  as  a  particular  indi- 
vidual one,  and  thence  infer  some  few  miracles.  And 
then  how  much  must  the  physical  care  of  the  children 
which,  in  the  middle  classes,  entirely  devolves  on  the 
mother,  weary  and  deaden  her  —  as  compared  with  the 
independent  father  —  for  their  mental  culture. 


WOMEN'S    ADAPTATION   TO    CHILDREN.       169 

§79. 

The  education  of  the  first  half  of  the  first  decade  of  life 
is  already  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  mother,  owing  to  the 
necessities  of  the  body.  His  avocations  in  the  state,  in 
science,  or  art,  only  grant  the  father  intervals,  and  those 
rather  for  instruction  than  education,  —  two  happy  classes 
of  fathers  alone  excepted.  The  first  is  a  country  gentle- 
man, who  reposes  in  such  a  golden  mean  of  all  circum- 
stances, that  he  converts  his  mansion  into  a  benevolent 
institution  for  his  children,  if  he  love  his  successors  better 
than  cards  and  hares  and  rents.  The  second  is  the  man 
whom  he  appoints,  —  a  country  clergyman.  The  six 
days'  leisure,  the  country's  separation  from  the  turmoil 
of  towns,  the  open  air,  the  office,  which  is  itself  a  higher 
educational  institution,  and,  finally,  the  seventh  day, 
which  presents  their  physical  father  to  his  children,  on  a 
glorifying  elevation,  as  a  holy  and  spiritual  father,  and 
impresses  an  official  seal  on  the  lessons  of  the  week,— 
all  these  things  open  to  the  minister  a  sphere  of  education 
into  which  he  may  attract  other  children ;  since  he  may 
always  better  convert  his  parsonage  into  a  school-house 
than  a  tutor's  study  into  a  parish.  I  would  rather  trust 
my  son  to  a  clergyman  than  to  a  tutor ;  because  he  is 
freer,  and  stands  on  his  legs,  not  upon  crutches. 

In  the  middle  ranks  the  men  educate  best,  because  the 
women  are  little  cultivated :  in  the  higher  classes,  gen- 
erally, the  women,  because  there  they  are  more  carefully 
brought  up  than  the  men.  What,  now,  can  the  man  do  ? 
a  philosopher,  we  will  suppose,  or  a  minister  of  pubhc 
affairs,  a  soldier,  a  president,  poet,  or  artist? 

In  the  very  first  instance,  he  must  love  and  recompense 
his  wife  better,  in  order  that  she,  by  double  support,  the 
love  of  her  children  and  the  love  of  her  husband,  may 
8 


I70  LEVANA. 

more  easily  carry  out  the  most  difficult  part  of  education, 
the  first  In  this  way  the  husband  may  bestow  care  and 
attention  on  the  first  and  most  important  education,  that 
given  by  the  mother,  which  no  after  tutors,  schools,  or 
paternal  praise  and  blame,  can  ever  replace ;  that  is  to 
say,  he  will  exercise  the  law-giving  power  of  education, 
the  mother  the  administrative.  Let  the  husband  only 
continue  to  be  the  lover  of  his  wife,  and  she  will  listen  to 
what  he  says  about  education,  at  least  of  the  mind.  How 
readily  will  a  noble-minded  marriageable  girl,  or  a  bride, 
surveying  from  afar  her  future  work,  listen  to  the  educa- 
tional rules  which  even  a  youth  gives  !  And,  when  mar- 
ried, a  woman  willingly  adopts  many  a  good  suggestion 
about  the  education  of  her  children  which  a  stranger 
offers.  Only  by  the  union  of  manly  energy  and  decision 
with  womanly  gentleness  does  the  child  rest  arid  sail  as 
at  the  conflux  of  two  streams  ;  or,  in  another  figure,  the 
sun  raises  the  tide,  and  so  does  the  moon,  but  he  raises  it 
only  one  foot,  she  three,  and  both  united  four.  The  hus- 
band only  marks  fall  stops  in  the  child's  life,  the  wife 
commas  and  semicolons,  and  both  more  frequently.  One 
might  exclaim,  "  Mothers,  be  fathers  ! "  and  "  Fathers,  be 
mothers !  "  for  the  two  sexes  perfect  the  human  race,  as 
Mars  and  Venus  gave  birth  to  harmony.  The  man  works 
by  exciting  powers  ;  the  woman  by  maintaining  order  and 
harmony  among  them.  The  man,  in  whom  the  state,  or 
his  own  genius,  destroys  the  balance  of  powers  for  the 
advantage  of  one,  will  always  bring  this  overlaying  influ- 
ence to  education ;  the  soldier  will  educate  warlikely  ; 
the  poet,  poetically  ;  the  divine,  piously  ;  the  mother  only 
will  educate  humanly.  For  only  the  woman  needs  to 
develop  nothing  in  herself  but  the  pure  human  being ; 
as  in  an  ^olian  harp  no  string  predominates  over  the 


WOMEN'S    ADAPTATION    TO    CHILDREN.       17U 

rest,  but  the  melody  of  its  tones  proceeds  from  unison, 
and  returns  to  it. 

§  80. 

^But  you  mothers,  and  especially  you  in  the  higher  and 
less  busy  classes,  whose  fortune  spares  you  the  heavy 
burden  of  careful  housekeeping,  and  surrounds  you  with 
a  cheerful  green  garden  for  the  education  of  your  chil- 
dren, how  is  it  that  you  can  prefer  the  tedium  of  sohtude 
and  of  society  to  the  enduring  charms  of  your  children's 
love,  —  to  the  drama  of  their  fair  development,  —  to  the 
sports  of  the  best-beloved  beings,  —  to  the  reward  of  the 
most  delightful  and  lasting  influence?  That  woman  is 
despicable  who,  having  children,  ever  feels  ennui.  Well- 
formed  nations  have  been,  according  to  Herder,  the  edu- 
cators of  the  human  race  ;  so  let  your  beauty  be,  not 
merely  the  external  garment,  but  the  very  instrument  of 
instruction  and  education.  Towns  and  countries  have 
female  names,  and  are  represented  as  females ;  and,  in  • 
truth,  the  mothers  who  educate  for  the  future  the  first 
five  years  of  their  children's  life  do  found  cities  and 
countries.  Who  can  replace  a  mother  ?  Not  even  a 
father.  For  she,  attached  to  the  child  by  the  daily  and 
nightly  bonds  of  care  for  its  physical  wants,  can  and  must 
weave  and  embroider  mental  instruction  in  glittering  char- 
acters on  those  tender  ties.  Will  you,  then,  neglect  the 
fairest  time  for  working  purely  and  deeply  on  posterity, 
since  the  stronger  sex  and  the  state  will  soon  step  in,  and 
bring  puUies  and  grappling-irons  instead  of  your  leadingr 
strings  and  gently  raising  levers,  and  therewith  move 
them  harshly  and  roughly  ?  Dost  thou,  royal  mother, 
consider  it  nobler  to  guide  the  intrigues  of  a  cabinet,  than 
the  little   future  heir-apparent?    Thou  hast  borne  him 


172  LEVANA. 

within  thee,  when  a  heavier  burden,  and  hast  suffered 
acutest  pain  when  he  was  taken  from  thee,  and  this  only 
for  his  physical  life;  and  wilt  thou  shun  to  undertake 
something  less  than  both  these,  whereby  thou  mayest 
draw  a  holy  spiritual  glory  around  thy  victory?  How 
often  are  your  night-watches  recompensed  by  a  child's 
coffin  ;  but  your  day-watches  over  his  mind  ever  by  rich 
daily  rewards  !  If  you  once  believe  that  everything  de- 
pends on  education,  what  name  do  you  deserve,  when, 
precisely  as  your  position  is  high,  you  mtrust  the  educa- 
tion of  your  children  to  persons  of  lower  rank  ;  and  while 
the  children  of  the  middle  classes  have  their  parents, 
those  of  the  higher  classes  have  only  nurses  and  maids, 
as  the  directors  of  their  path  in  hfe  ?  j 

The  whole  ancient  world  elevates  maternal  above  pa- 
ternal love ;  and  the  mother's  must  be  great  indeed,  for 
a  loving  father  cannot  even  picture  to  himself  any  love 
greater  than  his  own  ;  why,  then,  are  you,  compared  with 
the  fathers,  who  are  so  anxious  about  education,  and  who 
even  write  great  books  upon  the  subject,  so  indifferent 
about  its  appHcation?  For  your  lover  you  can  freely 
give  wealth  and  health ;  why  not  then  spare  a  few  hours 
for  the  little  helpless  creature  you  love  ?  For  the  one 
you  overcome  opinions  and  inclinations  ;  why  should  you 
do  less  for  the  other?  You,  on  whose  physically  and 
spiritually  nourishing  bosom  Nature  has  cast  the  orphans 
of  the  earth,  will  you  let  them  fade  and  die  on  a  cold, 
hired  breast?  You,  who  are  provided  by  nature  with 
patience,  grace,  gentleness,  eloquence,  and  love  for  the 
beings  who  fly  to  you  even  from  their  father,  can  you  not 
watch  ov«r  tjiem  ?  I  do  not  mean  during  the  night,  but 
only  during  the  day.  See !  they  who  once  rested  be- 
neath your  heart  and  have  now  no  longer  a  place  in  it, 


WOMEN'S    ADAPTATION    TO    CHILDREN.      I73 

Stretch  their  little  arms  towards  her  who  is  most  related 
to  them,  and  beg  again  for  nourishment.  As  in  many- 
ancient  nations  no  request  was  denied  to  a  woman  hold- 
ing a  child  in  her  arms,  so  now  do  children,  lying  in 
your  arms,  or  in  their  nurse's,  offer  up  petitions  for  them- 
selves. / 

It  is  true  that  the  sacrifices  you  make  for  the  world 
will  be  little  known  by  it ;  —  men  govern  and  earn  the 
glory  ;  and  the  thousand  watchful  nights  and  sacrifices 
by  which  a  mother  purchases  a  hero  or  a  poet  for  the 
state  are  forgotten,  not  once  counted ;  for  the  moth- 
ers themselves  do  not  count  them  ;  and  so,  one  cen- 
tury after  another,  do  mothers,  unnamed  and  unthanked, 
send  forth  the  arrows,  the  suns,  the  storm-birds,  and  the 
nightingales  of  time  !  But  seldom  does  a  Cornelia  find  a 
Plutarch,  who  connects  her  name  with  the  Gracchi.  But 
as  those  two  sons  who  bore  their  mother  to  the  temple  of 
Delphi  were  rewarded  by  death,  so  your  guidance  of  your 
children  will  only  find  its  perfect  recompense  at  the  ter- 
mination of  life. 

/Twice,  however,  you  will  not  be  forgotten.  If  you 
believe  in  an  invisible  world  in  which  the  glad  tears  of  a 
thankful  heart  are  more  valued,  and  shine  more  brightly, 
than  worldly  crowns  set  round  with  the  petrified  tears  of 
sorrow  ;  if  you  believe  this,  you  know  your  future  !  And 
if  you  have  educated  rightly,  your  child  knows  you. 
Never,  never  has  one  forgotten  his  pure,  right-educating 
mother.  On  the  blue  mountains  of  our  dim  childhood, 
towards  which  we  ever  turn  and  look,  stand  the  moth- 
ers who  marked  out  to  us  from  thence  our  life  :  the  most 
blessed  age  must  be  forgotten  ere  we  can  forget  the 
warmest  heart.  You  wish,  O  women !  to  be  ardently 
loved,  and  forever,  even  till  death.     Be,  then,  the  moth- 


174  LEVANA. 

ers  of  your  children.  But  you  mothers  who  do  not 
educate  your  children,  how  should  your  thanklessness  for 
an  unmerited  blessing  cause  you  to  hang  down  your  head 
in  shame  before  every  childless  mother,  every  childless 
wife,  and  blush  because  one  worthy  woman  sighs  after 
that  heaven  which  you  have  abandoned  like  a  fallen  an- 
gel. Oh  !  why  does  fate,  which  often  gives  a  million  souls 
to  the  rack  of  some  barbarous  century,  deny  to  the  most 
lovely,  gentle  being  the  bliss  of  one  child's  heart  ?  Why 
must  Love  long  for  an  object,  and  Hate,  not  ?  Ah  !  Er- 
nestina,*  how  wouldst  thou  have  loved  and  made  happy  ! 
But  thou  wast  not  permitted  ;  the  death-cloud  carried  thee 
away  with  all  the  roses  of  thy  youth,  and  thy  warm 
mother's  heart  was  called,  childless,  into  the  unknown 
world  of  spirits.  Oh  !  how  wouldst  thou  have  loved  and 
educated  with  thy  clearness  of  perception,  thy  strength 
of  character,  thy  ever-flowing  spring  of  love,  thy  self-sac- 
rificing soul,  —  thou,  who  wert  adorned  with  all  the  vir- 
tues of  an  ancient  German  woman  ! 

*  The  excellent  lady  to  whom  the  poet  here  pens  so  fine  a  memo- 
rial, was  his  wife's  younger  sister,  Ernestina  Augusta  Philippina  Mahl- 
mann,  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Mayer  of  Berlin,  and  wife  of  Augustus 
Mahlmann,  of  Leipsic.  She  died,  February  18,  1805,  in  the  twenty- 
sixth  year  of  her  age.  The  desire  to  press  a  child  to  her  heart  occu- 
pied the  last  moments  before  her  death.  She  was  one  of  the  noblest 
bemgs  that  ever  lived.  V 


NATURE    OF    WOMEN.  l?' 


CHAPTER    III. 


NATURE    OF   WOMEN. 


§81. 

THE  education  of  daughters  is  the  first,  and  most  im- 
portant business  of  mothers  ;  because  it  may  be  un- 
interrupted, and  continue  till  the  daughter's  hand  glides 
straight  from  the  mother's  into  that  which  holds  the  wed- 
ding-ring. The  boy  is  educated  by  a  many-toned  world, 
school-classes,  universities,  travels,  business,  and  libraries  ; 
the  mother's  mind  educates  the  daughter.  For  that  very 
reason  he  is  more  independent  of  the  shocks  of  foreign 
influence  than  his  sister ;  for  outward  contradiction  com- 
pels him  to  an  inner  balancing  unity,  whereas  one  little 
corner  of  the  world  easily  appears  a  whole  quarter,  nay, 
a  whole  world,  to  the  maiden. 

Before  we  speak  of  the  education  of  the  sex,  we  must 
first  determine  its  character.  According  to  well-known 
principles  the  nature  of  men  is  more  epic,  and  formed  for 
reflection  ;  that  of  women  more  lyrical,  and  endowed  with 
feeling.  Campe  truly  remarks,  that  the  French  have  all 
the  failings  and  perfections  of  children ;  hence,  I  believe, 
they  gladly  call  themselves  Athenians,  whom  the  old 
Egyptian  priest  found  at  once  very  childlike  and  very 
childish.  I  have  discussed  more  at  large  in  other  places 
the  great  resemblance  between  the  character  of  the 
French  nation  and  that  of  women.  From  these  two  as- 
sertions, at  least  from  the  more  flattering,  a  third  would 
fojlow,  the  resemblance  between  women  and  children. 
The  same  unbroken  unity  of  nature,  the  same  clear 
perception  and  understanding  of  the   present,  the  same 


176  LEVANA. 

sharpness  of  wit,  the  keen  spirit  of  observation,  ardor 
and  quietness,  excitability  and  easily  raised  emotions, 
the  ready,  quick  passage  from  the  inward  to  the  out- 
ward, and,  conversely,  from  gods  to  ribbons,  from  motes 
in  the  sunbeam  to  solar  systems,  the  admiration  of 
forms  and  colors,  and  excitability,  carry  out,  by  a  men- 
tal alliance,  the  physical  alliance  of  the  two  beings. 
Hence,  to  use  an  appropriate  simile,  children  are  in  the 
first  instance  dressed  in  women's  habits. 

He  who  loves  antitheses  of  the  newest  fashion  might 
call  women  antique,  Grecian,  or  even  Oriental  beings ; 
men,  on  the  contrary,  modern,  northern,  European  ;  those 
poetical,  these  philosophical.  A  man  possesses,  as  it 
were,  two  selfs  ;  a  woman  but  one,  and  needs  another  to 
see  her  own.  From  this  female  deficiency  of  holding 
dialogues  with,  and  multiplying  self,  may  be  explained 
most  of  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  woman's 
nature.  And  so,  because  their  near  echo  readily  becomes 
a  resonance,  and,  confused  with  the  original  sound,  they 
can  neither  poetically  nor  philosophically  separate  and 
reunite  their  component  parts,  they  are  more  truly  poetry 
and  philosophy  than  poets  and  philosophers.  Women 
show  more  taste  in  dressing  others  than  themselves  ;  and, 
precisely  because  it  is  the  same  with  their  bodies  as  with 
their  hearts,  they  can  read  in  those  of  others  better  than 
in  their  own. 

§82. 

We  will  in  various  ways  pursue  the  unity  and  sincer- 
ity of  woman's  nature.  Because  in  her  no  power  pre- 
dominates, and  all  her  powers  are  rather  receptive  than 
formative ;  because  she,  true  mirror  of  the  versatile 
present,    accompanies    every   external    by   an    internal 


NATUKE    OF    WOMEN.  177 

change ;  even  because  of  these  things  does  she  seem  to 
us  so  enigmatic.  To  guess  what  her  soul  is,  means  to 
guess  her  physical  and  other  external  relations ;  hence, 
the  man  of  the  world  loves  her  as  well,  and  names  her 
after  those  long  thin  wine-glasses,  called  impossibles,  be- 
cause they  cannot  be  emptied  how  high  soever  you  raise 
them. 

Like  the  piano-forte,  we  might  call  her  pianissimo-fortis- 
simo,  so  accurately  and  strongly  does  she  reflect  the  ex- 
tremes of  accident ;  at  the  same  time,  and  for  this  very 
reason,  her  natural  position  must  be  one  of  repose  and 
equal  balance,  like  Vesta,  whose  holy  fire  none  but  women 
tended,  and  which  everywhere,  in  town,  temple,  or  pri- 
vate room,  took,  by  law,  the  middle  place. 

Passion  drives  the  man,  passions  the  woman;  him  a 
stream,  her  the  winds :  he  declares  some  one  power  to  be 
monarchic,  and  suffers  himself  to  be  ruled  by  it;  she, 
more  democratic,  lets  the  passing  moment  rule.  The  man 
is  more  frequently  serious  ;  the  woman,  for  the  most  part, 
either  blessed  or  cursed,  joyful  or  sorrowful ;  which  does 
not  contradict  our  former  praise  of  her  measured  tranquil 
constitution;  for  cheerfulness  dwells  all  day  with  one 
woman,  sadness  with  another;  it  is  only  passion  that 
hurls  both  headlong. 

§83. 

Love  is  the  life-spirit  of  her  spirit ;  her  spirit  the  law, 
the  motive-spring  of  her  nerves.  How  deeply  she  can 
love  without  cause,  and  without  return,  might  be  remarked, 
even  if  not  shown  in  her  love  of  children,  in  her  dislikes, 
which  prey  on  her  as  strongly  and  unreasonably  as  her  love 
animates.  Like  the  Otaheitans,  who  are  so  gentle  and 
childlike,  and  yet  eat  their  enemies  alive,  the^  delicate 


178  LEVANA. 

creatures  have  a  similar  appetite,  at  least  for  their  female 
foes.  They  often  yoke  doves  to  a  thunder-car.  The 
somewhat  shrewish  Juno  demanded,  and  obtained,  from 
antiquity,  gentle  lambs  as  her  favorite  sacrifice.  Women 
love,  and  that  infinitely  and  truly ;  the  most  enthusiastic 
mystics  were  women ;  it  was  no  man,  but  a  nun,  who  died 
of  longing  love  to  Jesus.  But  it  was  only  a  man,  and  no 
woman,  who  could  demand  from  the  Stoic  sage  indiffer- 
ence to  friendship.  Nature  sent  women  into  the  world, 
with  this  bridal  dower  of  love,  not,  as  men  often  think, 
that  they  may  altogether  and  entirely  love  them  from  the 
crown  of  their  head  to  the  sole  of  their  feet,  but  for  this 
reason,  —  that  they  might  be,  what  their  destination  is, 
mothers,  and  love  children,  to  whom  sacrifices  must  ever 
be  offered,  and  from  whom  none  are  to  be  obtained. 

Woman,  in  accordance  with  her  unbroken,  clear-seeing 
nature,  loses  herself^  and  what  she  has  of  heart  and  hap- 
piness, in  the  object  she  loves.  The  present  only  exists 
to  her ;  and  this  present,  again,  is  a  determinate  one,  it  is 
one,  and  only  one,  human  being.  As  Swift  loved  not  the 
human  race,  but  only  individuals  belonging  to  it,  so  wo- 
men, though  they  have  the  warmest  hearts,  are  no  citizens 
of  the  world,  scarcely  citizens  of  a  town  or  a  village,  but 
only  of  their  home ;  ^o  woman  can  at  the  same  time  love 
the  four  quarters  of  the  world  and  her  own  child,  but  a 
man  can.  He  loves  the  idea  ;  she  the  manifestation,  that 
which  alone  is ;  as  God  —  if  this  bold  figure  be  not  too 
bold  —  has  only  one  loved  object,  —  his  universe.  This 
peculiarity  shows  in  many  other  ways.  Men  love  things 
best;  for  instance,  truths,  possessions,  countries:  women 
love  persons  best :  the  former,  it  is  true,  readily  personify 
what  they  love.  Just  as  what  is  the  goddess  of  wisdom  to 
a  man,  to  a  woman  easily  becomes  a  man  who  has  wis- 


NATURE    OF    WOMEN.  179 

dom.  Even  when  a  child,  a  woman  loves  a  mock-human 
being,  a  doll,  and  works  for  it ;  the  boy  gets  hold  of  a 
wooden  horse  and  a  troop  of  tin  soldiers,  and  works  with 
them.  It  probably  arises  from  this  very  fact,  that  among 
boys  and  girls,  sent  at  the  same  age  to  school,  though  the 
latter  mature  sooner,  they  yet  retain  their  play-persons 
longer  than  boys  do  their  playthings.  When,  however, 
grown-up  women  of  the  lower  classes  look  intensely  after 
a  beautiful  doll,  carried  by  a  child  in  the  higher  ranks  of 
life,  it  seems  their  love  of  dress  may  exceed  their  love  of 
children.  Further,  girls  kiss  one  another  more  frequently 
than  boys;  those  look  at  the  rider,  these  at  the  horse; 
those  inquire  about  appearances,  these  about  their  causes ; 
those  about  children,  these  about  animals. 

§84. 

The  more  corrupt  a  century,  the  more  contempt  is 
there  in  it  for  women.  The  more  slavery  in  the  form,  or 
formlessness,  of  government,  the  more  do  they  become  the 
handmaidens  of  servants.  In  old  free  Germany,  women 
were  considered  sacred,  and,  like  their  images,  the  doves 
of  Jupiter  at  Dodona,  pronounced  oracles ;  in  Sparta  and 
England,  and  in  the  fair  age  of  chivalry,  women  bore  the 
order-jewels  of  man's  reverence.  ISfow,  since  women  rise 
and  fail,  become  noble  or  base,  according  to  the  form  of 
government, — and  this  is  constantly  created  and  main- 
tained by  men,  —  it  is  clear  that  women,  after  the  charac- 
ter of  men  is  formed,  imitate  that  model :  that  there  must 
first  be  seducing  men  before  seduced  women ;  that  every 
deterioration  of  the  female  character  is  but  the  after-win-^ 
ter  of  a  similar  one  in  men.  Place  moral  heroes  in  the 
field,  and  heroines  follow  them  as  brides  :  but  the  opposite 
does  not  hold  true ;  no  heroine  can  create  a  hero  through 


l8o  LEVANA. 

love  of  her,  but  she  may  give  birth  to  one.  Therefore, 
all  the  more  contemptible  is  the  narrow-minded,  squeam- 
ish Parisian  man,  who  makes  tirades  against  the  Parisian 
women,  and,  consequently,  against  all  women ;  while  he 
only  ingrafts  on  them  his  own  old  sins,  and  poisons  their 
womanhood  by  his  own  womanishness.  How  would  such 
a  plaster-cast  creature  of  the  age  stand  and  tremble  and 
wither  away  before  a  Spartan  or  an  ancient  German 
woman ! 

Consequently,  the  present  age,  in  complaining  of  female 
sensuality,  admits  the  previous  existence  of  the  sin  in 
men.  Meanwhile,  let  the  Devil's  advocates  stand  forth 
against  women,  and  those  of  holiness  for  them,  and  to  the 
advantage  of  women.  There  are  many  satirical  creatures 
who  get  something  printed,  and  are  viewed  with  wonder, 
and  written  up  by  German  critics  as  men  deeply  read  in 
human  nature;  for  no  other  reason  than  this,  because, 
without  any  further  pretension  to  knowledge  of  the  world, 
insight,  heart,  or  mind,  they  have  converted  every  woman 
into  nothing  more  than  a  fifth  or  sixth  sense,  and  all  their 
own  desires  into  one  overlaying  one :  and  then,  especially 
the  critic  (he's  a  school-teacher),  thanks  God  and  the  au- 
thor, that  now,  for  a  few  pence,  which  he  does  not  pay, 
but  receives  as  a  reward  for  his  favor,  he  at  last  holds  in 
his  hand  the  key  of  the  French  and  allied  female  castle. 

These  denouncers  of  women  are,  at  all  events,  only 
half  right,  and  certainly  half  wrong ;  the  former  when 
they  speak  of  physiological,  the  latter  when  of  moral  sen- 
suality. Of  the  former  —  when  -without  the  concurrence 
of  a  perfectly  innocent  heart  —  no  one  is  guilty,  but  God 
the  Father ;  and  just  as  well  might  the  greater  beauty  of 
a  woman's  bosom  be  attributed  to  her  as  a  sin  and  excess. 
But  if  Heaven  created  her  especially  for  children,  it  is 


NATURE    OF    WOMEN.  l8l 

manifest  that  this  physiological  sensuality  was  ordained  by 
the  great  Father  of  all  children  for  the  advantage  of  the 
growing  after-world.  The  first  dwelling  which  man  in- 
habits is  an  organized  one  ;  and  can  this  be  too  rich,  too 
strong  for  his  first  original  formation  ?  Can  want  of  power 
and  life  ever  form  an  organic  creature  full  of  power  and 
life  ?  And  which  moment  is  the  most  important  in  the 
whole  life  ?  Certainly  not  the  last,  as  theologians  have 
often  stated ;  but  probably  the  first,  as  physicians  show. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  a  counterpoise,  there  is  allotted 
to  the  senses  of  woman  a  purer  heart  than  that  of  man, 
which  makes  common  cause  with  them ;  and  thus  the 
accusation  of  her  physical  conformation  closes  with  an 
eulogy  on  her  spiritual  nature.  But  these  good  beings  do 
not  defend  themselves  save  by  proxy ;  and  it  is  probable 
that,  with  their  facility  of  belief,  mistrustful  words  may  at 
last  turn  their  watchfulness  away  from  their  inward  heart ; 
just  as  many  lose  their  religion,  or  their  religious  sen- 
timents, without  knowing  how,  merely  because  they  hear 
discussions,  and  nothing  else,  about  it. 

§85. 

Nature  has  directly  formed  woman  to  be  a  mother, 
only  indirectly  to  be  a  wife ;  man,  on  the  contrary,  is 
rather  made  to  be  a  husband  than  a  father.  It  were,  in- 
deed, somewhat  strange  if  the  stronger  sex  must  lean  on 
the  weaker,  the  flower  support  its  stem,  the  ivy  the  tree  ; 
nevertheless  he,  just  because  he  is  the  stronger,  does 
enforce  something  of  that  kind,  makes  his  wife  into  the^ 
bearer  of  his  arms  and  burdens,  his  marketer  and  pro- 
vision cooker ;  and  the  husband  regards  the  wife  as  the 
bam  and  outer  shed  of  his  household  goods.  He  is  far 
more  created  for  her  than  she  for  him ;  she  is  for  physical, 


nwT^i? 


l82  LEVANA. 

what  he  is  for  mental  posterity.  Fleets  and  armies  prove 
the  dispensableness  of  women ;  on  the  contrary,  societies 
of  women  —  convents,  for  instance  —  do  not  arise  without 
some  male  directing  lever  as  pi'imum  mobile.  Nature, 
which  moves  on  kindly,  yet  cruelly,  towards  her  vast  ends 
in  the  world,  has,  for  this  purpose,  armed  women, — 
the  colleges  and  training-houses  of  posterity,  —  men- 
tally and  physically,  with  power  of  giving  and  power  of 
denying:  both  their  physical  and  mental  charms  and 
weaknesses  afford  them  protection.  Hence  arise  regard 
and  attention  to  their  persons,  with  which  their  souls  are 
more  intimately  united  into  one  existence  than  ours; 
hence  their  dread  of  wounds,  because  these  affect  a  double 
life,  and  their  indifference  to  sickness ;  whereas  men  fear 
wounds  less  than  illnesses,  because  those  affect  the  body 
most,  these  the  mind.  Connected  with  these  are  her 
temperance,  her  love  of  cleanliness,  and  also  her  modesty 
and  her  inclination  to  housewifery  and  quietness.  The 
moral  and  apprehensive  nature  of  girls  is  more  rapidly 
developed  than  the  mind  of  boys  (as,  according  to  Zach, 
satellites  move  quicker  than  planets;  or,  as  flowers  in 
valleys  bloom  sooner  than  on  mountains)  ;  because  to  the 
physical,  and  consequently  maternal,  maturity  of  fifteen 
Nature  has  also  added  that  of  the  mind.  So  soon  as  the 
luxuriant  flower  has,  with  its  pollen,  provided  for  another 
spring,  Nature  harshly  destroys  its  attractive  colors,  and 
leaves  it  to  its  mental  treasures  and  harvest.  On  the 
contrary,  she  preserves  man's  body,  which  has  to  serve  on 
a  longer  journey  of  action  and  thought,  active  into  the  vaJe 
of  years,  and  far  beyond  the  season  of  woman's  bloom. 

We  may  here  subjoin  this  remark,  drawn  from  the 
animal  kingdom,  that  the  male  shows  his  greatest  cour- 
age and  power  in  the  love-season,  but  the  female  after 
having  given  birlh  to  her  offspring. 


NATURE    OF    WOMEN.  183 

It  is  easy  to  draw  out  these  assertions  into  the  lesser 
matters  of  detail ;  for  instance,  female  avarice,  which 
saves,  not  for  seL^  but  for  her  children,  love  of  trifles, 
love  of  talking,  the  gentle  voice,  and  many  things  which 
we  blame. 

§86. 

We  return  to  the  former  complaints  about  women. 
But  why  do  men  use  this  word  so  often,  about  those 
beings  to  whom  they  owe  the  first  thanks  for  existence, 
and  who  are  sacrificed  by  Nature  herself  that  life  may 
follow  life  ?  Why  are  the  treasure-houses  of  humanity, 
its  creators  under  God,  not  esteemed  more  highly  ?  and 
why  do  they  only  receive  the  wreath  of  corn-ears  to 
carry,  because  it  is  prickly  ?  Were  there  only  one 
father  on  the  earth,  we  should  worship  him ;  but  were 
there  only  one  mother,  we  should  reverence  and  love  her 
as  well  as  worship. 

The  noblest  and  fairest  quality  with  which  Nature 
could  and  must  furnish  women,  for  the  benefit  of  pos- 
terity, was  love,  the  most  ardent,  yet  without  return, 
and  for  an  object  unlike  itself  The  child  receives  love, 
and  kisses,  and  night-watchings,  but  at  first  it  only 
answers  with  rebuffs ;  and  the  weak  creature,  which 
requires  most,  pays  least.  Biit  the  mother  gives  un- 
ceasingly ;  yea,  her  love  only  becomes  greater  with  the 
necessity  and  thanklessness  of  the  recipient,  and  she  feels 
the  greatest  for  the  most  feeble,  as  the  father  for  the 
strongest  child. 

"  But,"  it  may  be  objected  to  this  view  of  woman's 
destination,  "  women  particularly  seek  after  and  honor 
all  mental  or  physical  power ;  they  love  their  own  sex 
little,  and  judge  its  weaknesses  more  harshly  than  the 
roughness  of  men.      However  angry  a  master  may  be 


184  LEVANA. 

with  his  servant,  a  mistress  is  far  more  so  with  her  slave, 
whether  in  the  colonies  or  in  Germany  ;  and  the  Roman 
ladies  chose  to  have  their  toilets  performed  bj  maidens 
with  bared  bosoms,  so  that  they  might,  at  the  least  mis- 
take in  dressing,  stick  pins  into  them  for  punishment. 
Mothers,  as  well  as  courts,  celebrate  the  birth  of  a  prin- 
cess with  fewer  cannon-shots  than  that  of  a  prince.  If 
a  woman,  in  any  trick  of  cards,  is  asked  to  fix  on  some 
one  card,  she  always  chooses  the  king  or  knave,  at  all 
events,  never  a  queen ;  and  actresses  like  to  perform 
no  parts  better  than  those  of  disguised  young  men. 
But  one  does  not  need  to  be  very  long  in  Parfs,  or 
in  the  world,  ay,  or  upon  the  world,  to  guess  what 
they  want  by  it." 

Nothing  bad ;  but  a  protector  for  their  children.  As 
Herder  has  beautifully  remarked.  Nature  has  implanted 
reverence  for  men  in  women's  heart ;  from  this  rever- 
ence springs,  in  the  first  instance,  love  for  men,  but 
afterwards  it  passes  into  love  for  children.  If  even 
men,  loving  with  the  fancy,  and  after  preconceived 
notions,  far  more  than  with  the  heart,  follow  actresses, 
because  they  have  seen  them  play  fine  romantic  char- 
acters, —  queens,  goddesses,  heroines,  yes,  heroines  of 
virtue,  —  why  should  not  women  fall  in  love  from  rev- 
erence, when  they  see  us  play  the  greatest  parts,  not  as 
an  actress  does  Lucretia,  Desdemona,  or  Iphigenia,  for 
a  short  evening's  amusement,  but  for  years  of  sober- 
seriousness  on  the  theatre  of  the  world  or  of  the  state : 
one  man  is  a  hero,  another  a  president,  a  third  a  king, 
a  fourth  a  world  teacher  I  mean  an  author.  Children 
demand  this  love  of  the  mother  for  their  father  as  their 
inheritance,  or  pledged  property,  and  she  can  only  keep 
some  interest ;  until,  in  old  age,  when  the  children  them- 


NATURE    OF    WOMEN.  185 

selves  are  parents,  she,  a  gray-headed  woman,  as  silver- 
bride,*  again  experiences  a  kind  of  love  for  her  silver- 
bridegroom.  In  a  childless  marriage  the  wife  regards 
the  husband  as  her  first  and  only  son,  possessed  of 
qualities  which  constitute  her  true  honor,  and  support 
her  during  her  whole  life ;  and  she  loves  the  young 
man  unutterably. 

§87. 

If  a  young  woman  cherish  a  love  repressed  into  the 
bud  of  esteem,  she  will  do  little  less  than  all  for  her 
lover,  or  what  a  mother  does  for  her  child.  She  forgets 
herself  in  him,  because  only  through  him  does  she  re- 
member herself;  and  her  paradise  is  only  valued  as 
a  condition  and  fore-court  of  heaven  to  him :  and  she 
would  receive  a  hell  at  the  same  price.  Her  heart  is 
the  citadel,  everything  else  is  but  the  suburbs  and  country 
round  about  it ;  and  only  with  the  former  is  the  latter 
vanquished. 

,  If  it  be  true  that  the  lost,  in  their  haunts  of  misery, 
would  gladly  exchange  the  poisonous  lures  by  which  they 
must  maintain  and  deceive  themselves,  for  the  sweet 
intoxication  of  sincere,  heart-felt  love,  will  not  the  fresh 
virgin  heart  resign  all  for  the  sunrise  of  life,  for  the  first 
unbounded  love,  which  is  ardent  in  accordance  with  its 
purity  and  its  previous  non-existence,  to  the  God-man; 
who,  for  a  being  hitherto  bound  to  a  little  corner  of  the 
world,  suddenly  reveals  a  whole  new  world,  which  is,  for 
the  maiden,  this  world  joined  with  the  next.  Who, 
then,  shall  restrain  the  gratitude  of  love  towards  him 

*  The  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  a  married  couple's  wedding-day 
is  called  in  Germany  their  silver  wedding-day:  the  fiftieth,  their 
golden  wedding-day. 


l86  LEVANA. 

who  has  opened  happiness  and  freedom  to  a  i&ind 
chained  to  the  narrow  present,  who  has  embodied  all 
those  dreams  which  formerly  the  unoccupied  soul  per- 
sonified in  the  stars,  in  spring-time,  in  friends,  and  child- 
like duties  ?  I  know  him  well  who  shall  place  that 
restraint ;  even  he  who  requires  the  opposite,  —  the 
lover.  Certainly  a  wisely  and  purely  educated  maiden 
is  so  poetic  a  flower  of  this  dull  world,  that  the  sight 
of  this  glorious  blossom,  hanging,  some  years  after  the 
honeymoon,  with  yellow,  faded  leaves  in  unwatered  beds, 
must  grieve  any  man  who  beholds  it  with  a  poet's  eye ; 
and  who  must,  consequently,  in  sorrow  over  the  common 
usefulness  and  servitude  of  the  merely  human  life,  over 
the  difference  between  the  virgin  and  the  matron,  utter 
the  deadliest  wishes  ;  yes,  I  say,  he  would  rather  send 
the  virgin,  with  her  wreath  of  rose-buds,  her  tenderness, 
her  ignorance  of  the  sufferings  of  life,  her  dream-pictures 
of  a  holy  Eden,  into  the  graveyard  of  earth,  which  is 
God's  field,  than  into  the  waste  places  of  life.  Yet,  do 
it  not,  poet :  the  virgin  becomes  a  mother,  and  again 
gives  birth  to  the  youth  and  the  Eden  which  have  fled 
from  her ;  and  to  the  mother  herself  they  return,  and 
fairer  than  before :  and  so  let  it  be  as  it  is ! 

§88. 

How  is  it  that  in  morally,  as  well  as  architecturally,* 
undermined  Paris,  the  women  read  the  characters  of 
Heloise,  Attila,  Valeria,  in  which  only  the  love  of  the 
heart  plays  and  burns  with  as  great  eagerness  as  love- 
letters  ?  Women,  even  old  women,  and  young  men 
devour  such  works ;  whereas  older  men  prefer  being 
devoured   by  works  of  a  very  different   kind.      As   in 

*  It  is  well  known  that  Paris  is  built  from  the  quarries  beneath  it. 


NATURE    OF    WOMEN.  187 

a  well-played  game  of  chess,  or  in  war,  he  wins  who 
makes  the  first  move,  so  must  women,  as  the  assaulted 
party,  succumb.  But  who  attacks  us,  save  ourselves  ? 
And  which  is  more  guilty,  the  serpent  on  the  tree,  or 
Eve  under  the  tree  ?  And  how  small  and  transitory  is 
often  the  price  for  which  we  bargain  away  the  whole 
ha-ppiness  of  a  woman's  life  !  It  is  like  Xerxes  who 
carried  war  into  Greece  because   he  liked  eating  Attic 

figs- 
Further  :  a  woman's  imagination,  not  worn-out  like  a 
man's,  by  wine  and  excitement,  must  all  the  more  easily 
burst,  on  our  account,  into  those  flames  which  consume 
happiness. 

Hippel  remarks,  and  with  justice,  that  a  man  overtaken 
in  wrong-doing  is  ashamed  and  speechless,  that  a  woman 
becomes  bold  and  passionately  indignant.  And  this  is  the 
cause  of  it :  the  man  clearly  beholds  himself,  not  so  the 
woman ;  therefore  she  the  more  readily  makes  her  inno- 
cence appear  both  to  others  and  herself.  In  short,  our 
sins  are  more  generally  intentional ;  hers  thoughtless,  and 
tlierefore  the  more  excusable. 

And  finally  :  there  are  everywhere  more  chaste  dam- 
sels than  young  men,  more  chaste  women  than  men,  more 
old  maids  than  old  bachelors.  Man,  however,  may  glorify 
•himself  on  two  accounts.  First,  his  relations  to  life  and 
the  world  and  his  courage  lead  him  more  frequently  into 
temptations  ;  —  and  second,  the  man  who  preserves  his 
chastity  from  principle,  possesses  therein  a  praetorian 
band ;  but  the  woman  who  protects  hers  with  her  heart, 
and  from  regard  to  social  morality,  has  a  guardian  angel 
and  guard  of  honor.  The  cohort,  however,  is  stronger 
than  tlic  aiigel  and  the  guard. 


l88  LEVANA. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS. 

§89. 
FTER  the  last  chapter  this  might  be  a  short  one, 


A 


because,  according  to  it,  girls  are  to  be  educated  as 
mothers,  that  is,  as  teachers.  Our  only  duty  would  con- 
sist in  giving  them  printed  and  verbal  lessons  in  instruc- 
tion :  and  for  this  purpose  no  more  susceptible  period  is 
offered  to  the  parents  than  the  time  of  hope  and  the  six 
months  of  their  daughter's  engagement ;  nor  to  the  hus- 
band, than  the  first  year  of  wedded  life :  and  then,  again, 
that  the  elder  daughters  should  be  permitted  to  educate 
the  younger.  The  last  is  probably  the  most  spiritual 
school  for  obtaining  clearness  of  ideas,  patience,  and  cir- 
cumspection to  which  parents  can  send  their  daughters ; 
unfortunately  it  is  closed  against  the  youngest  child. 

But  before  and  after  being  a  mother,  a  girl  is  a  human 
being ;  and  neither  motherly  nor  wifely  destination  can 
overbalance  or  substitute  the  human,  but  must  become  its 
means,  not  end.  As  above  the  poet,  the  painter,  or  the- 
hero,  so,  above  the  mother,  does  the  human  being  rise 
pre-eminent :  and  as  the  artist,  while  forming  his  work, 
does  at  the  same  time  form  something  higher,  —  himself, 
the  creator  of  that  work  ;  so  the  mother  forms,  along  with 
the  child,  her  own  more  holy  self.  Every  divinely 
human  thing  has  attached  to  it  by  nature  the  condition 
of  locality ;  the  ideal  dwells  within  the  bodily  manifesta- 
tion, the  flower  pollen  within  its  cup  :  the  costliest  pearls, 
so  easily  lost,  are  strung  on  common  bands  and  threads, 
and  pierced  in  order  to  be  preserved. 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  189 

Since  Nature  has  ordained  woman  for  maternity,  it  has 
also  ordered  her  development ;  and  we  need  but  not  to 
oppose  nor  anticipate  its  determinations.  But  as  it 
always  labors  blindly  and  fixedly  on,  only  for  its  own 
one-sided  aims,  its  end  or  ends,  so  education  must  not 
attempt  to  vanquish  it,  —  for  every  natural  energy  is 
holy,  —  but  to  make  the  whole  nature  complete  by  soften- 
ing, purifying,  and  harmonizing  the  prepondei*ating  power 
by  means  of  the  other  balancing  powers. 

§90. 

A  woman  feels,  but  does  not  see,  herself;  she  is  all 
heart ;  her  very  ears  are  ears  of  the  heart.  To  observe 
herself  and  what  appertains  thereunto,  viz.  reasons,  is  too 
disagreeable  for  her.  Perhaps  it  was  on  this  account  that 
our  ancient  jurisprudence  sooner  relieved  a  man  than  a 
woman  from  an  oath,  but  applied  the  torture  sooner  to 
him  than  to  her.  Reasons  change  and  affect  the  firm 
man  more  easily  than  the  weak,  versatile  woman,  as  light- 
ning passes  better  through  solid  bodies  than  through  the 
thin  air. 

What  then  will  happen  ?  Feelings  come  and  go  like 
light  troops  following  the  victory  of  the  present :  but 
principles,  like  troops  of  the  line,  are  undisturbed  and 
stand  fast.  Shall  we  now,  by  anatomizing  it,  rob  the  heart 
of  its  fair  fulness  of  inner  life.  It  were  sad  if  one  could 
do  it ;  but  Sommering,  after  the  thousand  ears  he  has 
dissected,  still  experiences  the  charms  of  harmony ;  and 
the  philosopher,  even  after  publishing  his  theory  of  morals 
and  of  taste,  still  feels  the  power  of  conscience  and  of 
beauty. 

Let  a  girl  learn  to  prove,  analyze,  and  explain,  not  her 
feeling,  but  the  object  of  that  feeling ;  and  then,  having 


190  LEVANA. 

experienced  the  wrongness  of  the  object,  she  will  be  com- 
pelled during  the  whole  continuance  of  the  sensation  to 
follow  only  the  insight  she  has  gained.  Do  not  oppose 
the  feelings,  but  the  imagination. 

This,  in  a  picture  of  war,  for  instance,  compresses  the 
miseries  of  a  nation  into  one  heart ;  those  of  a  day  or  of 
a  year  into  one  moment ;  the  various  possibilities  into  one 
certainty;  now,  if  by  means  of  the  severing  concave 
mirror  of  reason,  we  separate  this  fancied  focus  into  its 
various  individual  rays,  the  feeling  is  not  destroyed,  but 
only  deferred.  But,  dear  mother,  cherish  and  protect 
every  warm  and  tender  feeling  which  years  themselves 
bring  and  form,  and  do  not  revel  in  the  sensibility  of  your 
youngest  daughter,  and  lose  yourself  in  tears  of  love 
while  relating  some  lamentable  story,  or  imparting  such 
feelings  in  all  their  nakedness.  For  in  future  years 
either  these  beings  will  succumb  to  their  feelings,  or  their 
feelings  to  them.  Feelings,  flowers,  and  butterflies  live 
all  the  longer  the  later .  they  are  developed.  Anything, 
whether  mental  or  physical,  which  will  certainly  some 
one  time  come  into  real  existence,  may  without  injury 
arrive,  somewhat  late,  but  not  too  soon ;  and  the  Germans 
of  Tacitus  preserved  without  disadvantage  that  heart 
full  of  energy  which  they  gave  forever  to  one,  even 
though  it  might  not  be  a  young  virginal  one,  which  had 
beaten  for  them  in  many  battles. 

Sin  not  against  your  daughters,  nor  blasphemously 
oflTend  the  spirit  of  God,  by  showing  and  recommending, 
even  indirectly,  any  excellence  they  may  possess,  be  it 
art,  science,  or  the  sanctuary  of  the  heart,  as  a  lure  to 
men,  or  bait  for  catching  a  husband  :  to  do  so  is  truly  to 
shoot  wild  fowl  with  diamonds,  or  to  knock  down  fruit 
with  a  sceptre.     Instead  of  making  heaven  a  means  and 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  191 

handle  for  this  earth,  we  should,  in  the  highest  possible 
degree,  elevate  this  as  a  means  of  attaining  that.  Only 
an  understanding  of  the  general  regulation  of  a  house  — 
order,  knowledge  of 'housekeeping,  and  similar  matters  — 
should  be  spoken  of  as  valuable  for  the  future  groundwork 
of  the  marriage  tie.  The  so-called  lady-like  accomplish- 
ments are,  at  most,  but  garlands  of  flowers  by  which 
Cupid  may  be  bound ;  but  Hymen,  who  breaks  through 
these,  and  garlands  of  fruit  too,  is  best  guided  and  held 
by  the  golden  official  chain  of  domestic  capability.  ^^ 

By  means  of  eloquence  impart  clearness  to  principles, 
and  by  means  of  repetition  give  the  power  of  comprehen- 
sion,—  and,  especially,  permit  as  little  as  possible  the 
enjoyment  of  self-commiseration,  which,  merely  to  retain  /^ 
excessive  pain,  flies  from  every  cheerful  light.  Hatred 
and  punishment  of  every  humor,  war  against  every  ob- 
jectless frame  of  mind,  are  exercises.  Even  in  the 
smallest  matters,  let  nothing  wilful  pass  unpunished  in 
your'  daughters. 

For  all  this,  some  man  is  needed,  round  whose  firm 
stem  this  weak,  wavering  flower-stalk  may  be  trained.  A 
lover  before  marriage  generally  prefers  looking  at  the 
rainbow  of  tearful  sensibilities,  of  fickle  whims,  and  help- 
less weaknesses ;  but  after  marriage,  when  the  rainbow 
turns  into  wet  weather,  he  requires  reasonableness  and 
thoroughness,  because  he  suffers  more  from  whims  which 
are  perpetually  recurring,  than  from  graver  faults ;  and, 
if  he  does  not  find  these  qualities,  he  awakes  from  his 
particular  dreams  without  finding  them  realized.  His 
dreams  are  these :  he  had,  forsooth,  when  a  lover,  in  va- 
rious pastoral  Arcadian  hours  of  the  heart,  led  his  love  to 
different  resolutions,  —  for  which  he  had  given  his  own 
good  reasons,  —  hence  he  was  led  to  expect  a  marriage 


192  LEVANA. 

full  of  governing  reasons.  "  For,"  said  he,  "  if  now,  in  the 
warmth  of  youth,  she  already  follows  reasons,  what  will 
she  do  when  cooler  and  older  ?  "  Merely  the  very  u^  posite. 
For  she  had  only  paid  attention  to  his  wishes,  not  to  his 
chain  of  reasoning,  and  done  everything  solely  from  love. 
Wherefore,  ye  husbands,  retain  the  love  of  your  wives, 
and  you  are  raised  above  the  necessity  of  sermons  on  rea- 
son. Should  it  be  more  difficult,  or  more  unprofitable, 
to  live  and  act  in  company  with  your  own  wife  and 
household  queen,  than  to  enter  into  partnership  with  the 
Virgin  Mary,  the  queen  of  heaven,  as  a  merchant  in  Mes- 
sina did,  and  honorably  handed  over  to  her  the  share  of 
his  profits  ? 

Preserve  girls  from  fear  and  affectation,  which,  for  the 
most  part,  find  place  where  reason  is  excluded.  Even  at 
a  very  early  age  you  may  cover  with  a  many-colored 
veil  many  imaginary  fears  :  for  instance,  you  may  tell  a 
child  that  the  first  clap  of  thunder  he  hears  is  the  rolling 
of  the  chariot  on  which  the  so  long  expected  spring  ar- 
rives ;  or  you  may  yourself  unconcernedly  regard  animals 
which  alarm  by  the  rapidity  of  their  movements,  as  mice  ; 
or  by  their  size,  as  horses  ;  or  by  their  unpleasing  forms, 
as  spiders  and  toads.  Then  direct  the  child's  eye  from 
the  whole  to  the  individual  beautiful  limbs,  and  gradually, 
without  compulsion,  draw  child  and  beast  together:  for 
children,  unlike  animals  governed  by  instinct,  have  scarce- 
ly any  other  fear  than  that  produced  by  strangeness. 
One  scream  of  fear  from  a  mother  may  resound  through 
the  whole  fife  of  her  daughter ;  for  no  rational  discourse 
can  extinguish  the  mother's  scream.  You  may  make  any 
full  stop,  colon,  semicolon,  or  comma  of  life  before  your 
children,  but  not  a  note  of  exclamation  ! 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  193 

§91. 
The  morality  of  girls  is  custom,  not  principle.  Boys 
might  be  improved  by  the  bad  example  of  drunken  Hel- 
ots ;  girls  only  by  a  good  one.  Even  boys  return  from 
the  Augean  stable  of  the  world  with  some  of  its  smell 
adhering  to  them ;  but  girls  are  frail,  white  Pai'isian  ap- 
ple-blossoms, parlor-flowers,  from  which  decay  must  be 
averted,  not  with  the  hand,  but  with  fine  camel-hair  brush- 
es. They,  like  the  priestesses  of  antiquity,  should  be 
educated  only  in  holy  places,  and  never  hear,  nor  much 
less  see,  what  is  rude,  immoral,  or  violent.  Magdalena 
Pazzi  said,  on  her  death-bed,  that  she  did  not  know  what 
a  sin  against  modesty  was  :  let  education  at  least  try  to 
imitate  this  example.  Girls,  like  pearls  and  peacocks, 
are  valued  for  no  other  color  than  the  most  perfect 
whiteness.  A  corrupt  youth  may  lay  down  a  noble  book, 
walk  up  and  down  the  room  in  passionate  tears,  and  ex- 
claim, "  I  will  amend  "  ;  and  keep  his  word.  At  the  end 
of  forty  years,  Rousseau  accomplished  his  first  transfor- 
mation from  the  caterpillar  state,  and  continued  in  it  until 
death  removed  him  by  a  second  change.  I  have  hitherto 
read  of  few  women  who  have  reformed  themselves  by 
other  means,  even  in  the  most  favorable  cases,  than  that 
of  a  husband ;  and  what  concerns  some  Magdalen  asy- 
lums, in  great  Magdalen  cities,  no  man  desirous  of  mar- 
rying would  accept  from  them,  as  from  a  wedding-office, 
his  wedded  half,  properly  but  a  kind  of  broken  fragment. 
Perhaps  this  consideration  excuses  the  conduct  of  the 
world,  which  regards  the  errors  of  men  but  as  the  chick- 
en-pox, which  leaves  few  or  no  marks  behind  ;  but  those 
of  women  as  the  small-pox,  which  imprints  its  traces  on 
the  recovered  patient,  at  least  on  the  general  remem- 
brance. 

9  M 


194  LEVANA. 

The  purer  the  golden  vessel,  the  more  readily  is  it 
bent :  the  higher  worth  of  women  is  sooner  lost  than  that 
of  men.  According  to  the  old  German  rural  custom,  the 
sons  walked  to  church  behind  the  father,  but  the  daugh- 
ters before  the  mother,  apparently  because  the  latter 
should  not  be  much  left  out  of  sight 

Nature  herself  has  surrounded  these  delicate  souls  with 
an  ever-present,  inborn  guard,  with  modesty,  both  in 
speaking  and  heaiing.  A  woman  requires  no  figure  of 
eloquence  —  herself  excepted  —  so  often  as  that  of  accis- 
mus.*  Keep  watch  over  this  guard,  and  pursue  by  this 
indication  of  nature  the  way  to  education.  On  this  ac- 
count, mothers,  fathers,  men,  and  even  youths,  are  their 
best  companions ;  on  the  contrary,  girls  connected  with 
other  girls  of  a  similar  age,  as  in  schools,  provoke  one 
another  to  an  exchange  of  foibles,  rather  than  of  excel- 
lences, to  a  love  of  dress,  admiration,  and  gossip,  even  to 
the  forgetting  of  accismus.  Even  sisters  of  unequal  age 
injure  one  another ;  how  much  more,  then,  similar-aged 
playfellows  :  one  needs  only  to  listen  to  the  mutual  teas- 
ing among  the  members  of  a  girls'  school,  when  per- 
chance a  young  man  has  entered,  or  even  approached, 
the  door.  In  the  paternal  dwelHng  little  would  be  made 
of  such  a  circumstance,  because  it  would  happen  more 
frequently  with  perfect  seriousness,  and  among  fewer 
rivals.  And  what  may  still  be  said  about  these  despotic 
interim-convents  ?  Men  are  made  for  society,  but  women 
for  maternal  solitude.  A  boys'  school  is  right,  but  not  a 
girls* ;  just  as  a  ship  of  war  filled  with  women  would  be 
merely  a  castle  in  the  air,  from  its  requiring  so  much 
unity,  quickness,  punctuality,  and  obedience.     Girls  de- 

*  So  rhetoricians  term  the  figure  by  which  one  speaks,  without  all 
longing,  of  the  very  objects  for  which  the  strongest  desire  is  felt. 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  195 

pend  upon  one  heart,  boys  on  many  heads.  The  most 
that  a  girl  could  find  in  a  school  would  be  a  second 
mother ;  but  the  father  would  be  wanting. 

Another  thing  which  a  mother  should  carefully  guard 
against  can  scarcely  be  avoided  in  a  girls'  school.  It  is, 
that  as  a  mistress  rules  and  speaks  ;  for  a  master  would 
speak  quite  differently :  and  as  rude,  violent,  dull-minded 
girls,  must  be  mingled  with  gentle,  dehcate,  and  suscep- 
tible ones,  the  bad  must  be  cured  by  means  of  many 
punishments  which  are  poison  to  the  best.  I  mean  this  : 
nothing  so  roughly  brushes  the  tender  auricula  dust,  or 
flower-pollen,  off  the  minds  of  girls,  as  that  old-maidish 
cry  of  alarm  at  our  sex :  that  prudish  abuse  of  a  sex  from 
which  every  one  must  make  an  exception  in  favor  of  her 
father  and  her  husband.  There  is  a  kind  of  bad,  unspirit- 
ual  modesty,  which  resembles  the  stone  veil  in  a  statue 
of  modesty  by  A.  Corradini,  which,  according  to  Volk- 
man,  hangs  down  from  it  clearly  and  separately  as 
another  body.  There  are  certain  precipices  along  which 
women,  like  mules  in  Switzerland,  must  not  be  led  if 
they  are  not  to  fall.  Definite  warnings  against  them 
serve  as  attractions  and  lures.  Let  the  parents  shine 
before  them  as  pure  examples,  and  they  will  not  need  to 
strengthen  modesty,  the  wing-covers  of  Psyche's  wings, 
with  extra  coverings.  By  instruction  a  child  is  robbed, 
in  the  first  instance,  of  her  innocent  want  of  shame,  after- 
wards of  its  silent  presence. 

What  follows  is  true,  though  in  a  lesser  degree,  of 
other  schools  besides  those  for  girls;  namely,  if,  in  the 
parental  dwelling,  educational  precept  is  lost  in  practice, 
and  the  child,  to  the  unspeakable  advantage  of  his  feeling 
of  freedom,  and  his  quicker  susceptibility,  receives  all 
moral  instruction  only  as  the  natural,  unobtrusive  accom- 


196  LEVANA. 

paniment  of  his  thread  of  life ;  in  a  school,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  child  feels  as  if  life  only  served  for  instruction, 
as  if  he  himself  lay  like  a  block  of  marble,  chisels  and 
hammers  passing  over  him  in  every  direction,  from  which 
so  much  was  to  be  hewn  away  that  a  grown-up  man 
should,  at  last,  rise  from  the  block.  The  secret  parental 
formation,  under  which  the  child  believed  himself  to  be 
growing  of  his  own  accord,  stands  here  revealed  in  its 
naked  aim;  he  feels  his  carnation  buds  opened  with  a 
penknife,  not  gently  disclosing  themselves,  after  warm 
rain,  by  their  own  native  force.  For  this  very  reason  a 
young  creature  would  scarcely  wish  to  remain  longer 
than  the  appointed  time  in  the  school-house,  but  would 
gladly  live  forever  in  its  parent's  home. 

Somewhat  better  than  girls'  boarding-schools  are  day- 
schools,  places  where  they  merely  receive  instruction.  It 
were  to  be  wished  that  in  both  of  these,  as  well  as  in  the 
girls'  room  at  home,  there  could  be  more  womanly  class- 
spirit  inspired,  more  love  and  reverence  for  their  own  sex, 
and  woman's  excellence  shown  as  well  as  the  more  bril- 
liant advantages  of  men.  This  leads  me  to  a  disinclina- 
tion not  sufficiently  struggled  against  in  girls'  schools,  — 
I  mean  that  of  women  towards  women. 

When  Richardson  had  put  every  means  of  torture,  or 
passion,  which  such  a  preying  shark  hides  under  his  skull 
to  use  against  women  sufferers,  into  the  head  of  that  devil 
towards  women,  Lovelace,  against  the  angel  Clarissa ; 
and  when  he  really  permitted  this  holy  virgin  to  be  cruci- 
fied by  him,  he  could  naturally  only  expect  that  women 
would  take  the  part  of  the  sufferer,  not  of  the  beast  of 
prey;  but,  to  his  utter  astonishment,  every  day's  post 
brought  him  letters  from  women  entreating  the  final  hap- 
piness of  the  good  Lovelace,  just  as  Klopstock  received 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  197 

similar  ones  for  the  reformation  of  his  Abadonna.  Much 
the  same  befell  a  converter  of  the  heathen  in  Greenland ; 
who,  after  having  employed,  as  he  hoped,  every  admitted 
power  of  eloquence  to  depict  the  burning  heat  of  hell, 
saw,  to  his  astonishment,  an  ever-increasing  cheerfulness 
in  the  faces  of  the  Greenlanders ;  until  at  last,  on  de- 
scending from  the  pulpit,  he  learned  that,  by  his  warm 
description  of  hell,  he  had  excited  a  special  longing  in  the 
whole  congregation  to  go  thither  as  to  a  milder  climate. 
Such  a  charming  hell  was  Lovelace  to  women,  although  a 
purgatory  to  Clarissa. 

It  almost  sounds  like  satire  to  say  that  women  are  not 
particularly  fond  of  each  other,  and  that,  with  all  their 
friendly  words  to  one  another,  they  rather  imitate  the 
nightingale,  which,  in  Beckstein's  opinion,  aims  by  its 
luring  tones  to  scare  other  nightingales  ;  and  so  the  asser- 
tion of  the  schoolman,  that  they  would  rise  up  as  men  at 
the  last  day,  may  be  in  some  measure  confirmed  by  the 
nature  of  heaven,  in  which,  as  the  abode  of  eternal  love, 
women  changed  into  men  would  naturally  and  more 
readily  feel  a  universal  love  by  the  entire  absence  of  their 
own  sex.  Moreover,  we  possess  the  facts  that  the  an- 
cient Roman  women  (according  to  Bottiger's  Sabina) 
manifested  a  degree  of  cruelty  towards  their  female 
slaves,  and  European  women  in  the  Indies  also  towards 
theirs;  and  the  most  ancient  governing  sister  on  the 
island  of  Lesbos  towards  her  other  sisters,  and  even 
towards  their  mothers;  and,  finally,  modern  mistresses 
towards  their  maid-servants ;  to  which  our  conduct  to- 
wards our  male  domestics  forms  a  noble  contrast,  so  that 
we  bear  away,  to  our  astonishment,  (for  we  often  flog  ser- 
vants,) the  honorable  name  of  the  gentler  sex.  I  only 
passingly  mention  calumniation,  or  the  "doing  to  death 


198  LEVANA. 

by  evil  tongues,"  whereby  a  parlor  is  converted  into  a 
canvassing  society  of  the  heads  and  hearts  of  such  fore- 
doomed women  as  are  not  there  drinking  tea. 

Should  we  not,  then,  seriously  exclaim,  "  0  mother ! 
above  all  other  things,  implant  and  cherish  in  your  daugh- 
ter a  love  and  reverence  for  her  own  sex.  Is  it  possible 
that  you  cannot  succeed  in  so  doing,  if  you  show  her  the 
crown  of  noble  women  shining  gloriously  amid  the  dark- 
ness of  past  ages ;  the  elevating  examples  of  united 
female  friends ;  and  the  relationship  of  all  their  sex's  sis- 
ters with  them  in  worth  and  in  danger ;  and  the  thought 
that  in  her  sex  each  honors  or  despises  the  sex  of  her 
mother ;  and  the  certainty  that,  as  hatred  of  humanity  is 
punished  in  misanthropes,  so  the  half  of  that  sin,  towards 
half  the  human  race,  will  be  punished  in  the  haters  of 
women?"  Even  the  father  may  contribute  his  share, 
and  indeed  the  largest,  towards  this  end,  by  not  merely 
preaching  to  his  daughter,  but  showing  her  more  regard 
towards  her  sisters,  as  the  mother  also  may  show  more 
love.  And,  since  no  precept  insures  the  practice  of  any 
virtue,  it  were  well  if  the  daughter  were  accustomed  to 
regard  in  maid-servants  not  merely  their  common  human- 
ity, but  their  fellowship  with  her  in  sex. 

§92. 

Some  of  the  modem  assthetic  lithologists  would  gladly 
see  female  flowering  plants  converted  into  petrifactions : 
they  ought,  say  they,  to  repose  more  fully  on  the  rights 
of  the  stronger.  First,  however,  it  were  to  be  wished 
that  more  wood  and  kernel  were  imparted  to  the  present 
soft,  spongy  character  of  men ;  when  that  is  effected,  the 
woman  will  enclasp  it  like  an  ivy  plant  and  form  its 
second  crown.     How  strong  in  will  women  are  is  a  ques- 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  199 

tion  to  be  asked,  not  of  lovers,  but  of  such  husbands  as, 
on  their  wedded  penitential  stools,  are  summoned  to  So- 
cratic  discourses  with  a  female  Socrates,  or  to  such  as 
Job's  wife  held.  In  the  love  before  marriage  the  girl 
appears  too  weakly,  characterless,  and  submissive ;  but 
marriage,  in  accordance  with  her  destination  for  children, 
suddenly  opens,  like  a  northern  sun,  all  her  blossoms,  be 
they  those  of  an  aloe  or  of  a  thistle.  Is  it  on  this  ac- 
count that  most  Slavonians*  call  their  beloved,  as  the 
Poles,  indeed,  do  all  women,  the  uncertain?  In  short, 
the  girl  matures  into  the  mother;  and  the  man  who  wishes 
to  possess  in  his  wife  at  once  a  slave  and  a  goddess  stands 
half  discomfited  by  the  change ;  the  little  that  he  can  say 
on  the  matter  consists  in  such  ideas  as  these  rather  than 
anything  else :  "  He  had,  trusting  in  his  own  steadfast- 
ness, lovingly  proposed  to  himself  to  have  been  a  prop  to 
her ;  but  she  had  brought  with  her  and  packed  up  for  use 
so  much  of  her  own,  that  subsequently,  between  man  and 
wife,  the  sex  was  as  difficult  to  distinguish  as  In  young 
birds ;  which  was  god,  which  goddess,  was,  in  his  own 
case,  as  hard  to  guess  as  in  the  early  Grecian  statues  of 
deities :  indeed,  it  were  to  be  wished  that  the  similarity 
were  less  absolute." 

Consequently  the  will  of  girls  is  less  to  be  strengthened 
than  bent  and  polished.  Like  plastic  divinities,  women 
should  only  gently  and  mildly  express  their  feelings. 
Every  outward  and  inward  excess  is  a  blemish  in  their 
charms,  a  poison  to  their  children.  Even  a  man  chooses 
gentleness  as  the  first,  though  perhaps  not  the  second, 
mode  of  expressing  his  will  and  determination.  No  mere 
strength  goes  to  war  against  feminine  gentleness ;  so  the 
tranquil  moonshine  is  rarely  broken  by  a  storm,  though 
*  See  Anton's  Essays  on  the  Slavonians,  Vol.  I. 


200  LEVANA. 

the  glowing  sunshine  may  be.  From  the  moment  in 
which  the  bravest  man  shall  speak  in  the  gentlest  manner 
will  sweetness  and  compliance  arise  more  and  more  in 
the  strongest  woman :  she  may  continue  to  be  a  pyramid, 
but  in  the  pyramids  is  found  a  soft  echo. 

Since  the  present  warlike  age  and  present  style  of 
German  poetry  send  women  less  to  the  flute-school  of 
gentleness  than  to  the  fighting-school  of  war,  a  few  sen- 
tences added  to  this  ninety-second  section,  which,  though 
not  bringing  cure,  may  yet  possibly  avert  the  evil,  will  not 
be  useless,  at  least  to  those  daughters  who  add  their  own 
character  as  a  female  water-pipe  to  our  present  tempest- 
uous season. 

Passionateness  in  a  woman's  soul  is  often  found  united 
T\^th  all  the  overflowing  fulness  of  a  deep,  noble  heart,  yes, 
even  with  predominant  gentleness  and  affection;  —  and 
yet  such  a  hard  adjunct  of  nature  may  draw  the  being 
herself,  and  all  who  love  or  are  loved  by  her,  into  the 
most  irremediable  misfortunes. 

The  usually  tranquil  female  character  is  naturally  so 
much  inclined  to  whirlwinds  of  passion,  that  even  the  laws 
(those  of  Prussia,  for  instance),  dreading  the  angels  of 
destruction  in  these  otherwise  mild  angels,  forbid  an 
apothecary  to  sell  poison  to  any  woman,  whereas  they 
permit  violent  men  to  procure  it.  The  laws  seem  usually 
to  consider  them  as  snow-white,  snow-dazzling,  and  snow- 
cold  Heclas  full  of  fire.  If,  now,  this  naturally  over- 
powerful  disposition  of  the  sex  be  increased  by  that  of  the 
individual,  we  behold  a  thunder-goddess,  who  beats  down 
with  waterspouts  her  little  flower-children,  not  to  mention 
her  drenched  husband,  flooded  house,  and  drowned  love. 
A  storming  mother  is  a  contradiction  in  education,  and  re- 
sembles those  tropical  storms  which  injuriously  increase 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  20I 

the  temperature  of  the  atmosphere ;  whereas  n  storming 
father  coohnglj  purifies  the  air.  To  the  child,  yet  stand- 
ing on  his  pure,  clear  heights,  passion  perhaps  sounds  as 
weak  as  does  a  crash  to  one  ascending  lofty  mountains  ; 
but  in  the  valleys  of  future  life  it  becomes  a  thunder-clap, 
and  every  fit  of  maternal  passion  returns  as  a  sevenfold 
echo  in  the  married  life  of  her  daughter.  As  I  have 
above  said,  I  do  not  refer  to  conjugal  love,  in  which,  dur- 
ing these  female  hurricanes,  the  thin  axle  of  Aphrodite's 
fair  car  breaks,  or  her  yoked  doves  tear  themselves  loose 
and  fly  away,  because  the  readers  do  not  here  require  the 
poison  to  be  shown  them,  but  its  antidote. 

This,  however,  is  not  so  close  at  hand,  as  our  discourse 
is  only  of  girls  six  or  seven  years  old.  But  to  oppose 
violence  to  violence,  to  attack  passion  by  passion,  is  to  try 
to  put  out  fire  with  boiling  oil :  punishments,  especially 
on  this  account  in  youth,  do  more  injury  than  the  stifling 
of  the  flames  warrants ;  to  which  must  be  added  that 
punishment,  as  is  natural,  only  then  affects  the  passion 
when  it  has  provided  the  match  for  a  still  greater  future 
one.  Every  repetition  of  the  fault  becomes,  in  this  case, 
a  doubling  of  it,  to  which  even  the  furrows  of  pain  act  as 
inflammatory  incitements.  As  a  physical  remedy,  one 
might  advise  more  vegetable  than  animal  diet,  and  that 
of  a  cooling  nature,  if  afterwards  advancing  years  with 
their  fiery  blood  would  not  again  produce  heat.  But  the 
best  means  to  use  against  it  in  early  life  are  the  preven- 
tion of  all,  even  the  smallest,  occasions  for  it,  or  sparks  for 
the  match  :  and,  on  the  other  hand,  let  every  power  of  love, 
of  patience,  of  peacefulness,  be  cherished  and  manifested 
and  employed  against  that  consuming  fire.  Commands 
effect  nothing ;  but  examples  of  gentleness,  whether  given 
or  related  in  tone  and  action,  do  all.  The  children  of 
9* 


202  LEVANA. 

Quakers  are  gentle  without  punishment ;  they  see  their 
parents  ever  shining,  as  tranquil  white  stars,  through  the 
stormy  clouds  of  foreign  environment. 

On  the  contrary,  in  the  later  years  of  reflection,  and  the 
blush  of  shame,  this  punishment  may  be  permitted,  in- 
deed ordained  ;  that  such  a  female  Boreas  of  fifteen  years 
old  may,  in  the  midst  of  her  roaring  storm,  openly  and 
harshly  receive  the  metaphorical  blow  in  the  face  on  her 
burning,  swollen  cheeks,  which,  given  previously,  without 
its  figurative  meaning,  would  only,  as  I  have  already  said, 
have  increased  the  whole  swelling  evil. 

§93. 

The  wife  of  a  nobleman  was  formerly  called  housewife. 
The  ancient  Britons  were  often  led  to  battle  by  brave 
women.  Many  Scandinavian  women,  according  to  Home, 
were  pirates.  A  North  American  on  the  land,  and  a 
Parisian  woman  in  the  shop,  do  everything  that  with  us 
devolves  on  the  man.  Should  it,  indeed,  be  sufficient  if  a 
girl  can  sew,  and  knit,  and  net  ?  When  Sweden,  under 
Charles  the  Twelfth,  had  sent  forth  all  her  men  at  the 
call  of  glory,  the  women  became  postmasters,  cultivators 
of  the  land,  and  overseers  of  the  public  offices.  And  since 
it  may  possibly  happen  in  time  that  all  the  men  may  be 
engaged  in  a  war  and  peace  establishment,  it  seems  to  me 
we  should  think  more  of  educating  girls  to  be  the  conduc- 
tors of  our  business,  and  the  managers  of  our  estates ;  for, 
subsequently,  if  the  men  were  killed,  there  might  be 
another  conscription  and  enhsting  demanded  from  the 
women  than  that  under  husbands. 

The  gymnastics  of  life  and  labor  are,  if  the  two  former 
sections  be  correct,  the  third  commandment  in  female 
education.     But  these  do  not  consist  of  so-called  lady-like 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  203 

occupations.  Sewing,  knitting,  or  spinning  with  a  Paris- 
ian pocket  spinning-wheel  are  recreation  and  repose 
from  labor,  not  labor  and  exercise  ;  for  that  spinning 
while  walking,  as  the  Moldavians  do,*  at  least  must  be 
ordered.  Worsted  work,  this  female  mosaic-work,  more 
suitable  for  the  higher  classes,  who  must  refresh  them- 
selves from  doing  nothing  by  doing  little,  easily  converts 
the  pattern  into  a  covering  for  indisposition  or  ill-humor. 
Xenophon  tells  us  that  Lycurgus  sent  the  Spartan  women 
to  the  public  places  of  exercise,  and  only  the  slaves  to 
the  embroidery-frame  and  the  spinning-wheel.  I  do  not 
reckon  as  greatest  those  physical  disadvantages,  the  slav- 
ish carriage  of  the  person,  for  instance,  which  need  a 
dancing-school  to  correct  what  the  sewing-school  has 
done,  for  a  watchful  mother  might  as  easily  enforce  corr 
rect  sitting  during  the  sewing-lesson,  as  a  writing-master 
can  do  during  the  writing-lesson ;  neither  do  I  reckon 
the  nerve-enfeebling,  ifinger-pricking  irritation  of  knitting ; 
and  the  physical  evils  of  a  sedentary  life  shall  be  treated 
of  hereafter.  But  most  employments  of  the  fingers  by 
which  you  attempt  to  fix  the  female  quicksilver  have  this 
injurious  effect,  that  the  mind,  left  to  idleness,  rusts  away, 
or  is  entirely  given  up  to  the  waves  of  circle  after  circle 
spreading  fancy.  Sewing  and  knitting  needles,  for  in- 
stance, keep  open  the  wounds  of  an  unhappy  attachment 
far  more  than  do  all  romances :  they  are  thorns  which 
themselves  pierce  the  falling  rose.  If  the  young  woman 
have,  as  the  young  man  generally  has,  some  occupation 
which  every  moment  demands  new  thought,  the  old  one 
cannot  perpetually  stand  out  in  the  most  prominent  hght. 
A  change  of  occupation  is  especially  adapted  to  the 
female  character,  as  the  steady  pursuit  of  one  is  to  that 
of  the  man. 

*  Sumarakoff' s  Travels  in.the  Crimea. 


204  LEVANA. 

Distraction,  forgetfulness,  want  of  consideration,  and 
presence  of  mind,  are  the  first  and  worst  consequences  of 
this  sweet  internal  and  external  yar  niente  ;  and  a  woman 
needs  nothing  more  to  poison  the  holy  trinity  of  wedlock, 
child,  husband,  and  self.  Heavens  !  how  a  young  man 
must  every  day  draw  his  thread  of  life  from  a  new  fleece, 
or  conduct  his  plans  on  their  long  journey  nearer  to  the 
goal,  while  a  young  woman  repeats  yesterday  in  to-day  as 
the  image  of  to-morrow ;  he  indeed  walks,  and  she  sits ; 
the  one  is  permitted  to  stand,  the  other  only  to  sit. 

The  female  sex  has  such  a  preference  for  every  an- 
choring manner  of  life,  that  it  would  gladly,  as  Geming 
says  the  Greek  women  actually  did,  carry  a  camp-stool 
with  it,  so  as  after  every  step  to  have  a  seat  ready  at 
hand.  Yet  I  should  think  women  might  be  satisfied  to 
resemble  the  sun  in  its  shining  and  warming  powers,  and 
not  also  in  its  immovableness.  They,  in  common  with 
the  sitting  professions,  tailoring  and  shoemaking,  are  the 
victims  of  spleen  and  fanaticism.  This  sedentary  life, 
full  of  noontide  rests,  morning  and  afternoon  rests,  and 
vesper  rests,  in  which  great  ladies  with  full  tables  and 
stomachs  indulge,  gives  so  much  trouble  to  the  doctors, 
running  hither  and  thither,  that  finally  a  knowledge  of 
medicine  will  be  as  necessary  as  a  knowledge  of  French 
to  every  chevalier  d'honneur,  and  chamberlain.  In  such 
a  circle  one  certainly  need  seek  few  Swiss  heroines,  not  to 
mention  that  Szekleress  from  the  district  of  Gyergj'oer, 
who,  in  a  battle  with  the  Moldavians,  killed  seven  of  them 
at  one  stroke,  and  in  the  evening  returned  and  was 
brought  to  bed  of  a  son.  This  circumstance  happened 
on  the  seventh  of  September,  1685. 

A  certain  Quoddensvult,  in  the  (yet  unprinted)  twenty- 
third  volume  of  the  Flegeljahre,  thinks  to  excuse  some- 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  205 

thing,  when,  after  having  spoken  of  the  female  love  of 
sitting  and  dancing,  until  he  hit  upon  those  hovering  flies 
which  hover  unwaveringly,  and  shoot  down  swift  as  ar- 
rows, he  thus  expresses  himself  concerning  it :  "I  see 
why  the  female  nature  loves  rest  better  than  men  do,  less 
in  crabs  —  of  which  the  female  has  much  the  fewer  legs 
under  its  tail  —  than  in  the  human  foetus  itself,  for  the 
boy  begins  to  move  in  the  third,  the  girl  in  the  fourth 
month.  Also  in  the  Culs  de  Paris  is  the  sitting  mode  of 
life  sufficiently  exemplified.  But  Nature  softens  this  as 
much  as  she  does  other  things,  by  giving  a  desire  for  sour 
kraut  and  herrings  as  a  curative  diet  to  fever  patients;  so 
she  implanted  in  the  bed  and  sofa  lying  woman,  as  well  as 
in  the  lazy  savage,  the  love  of  dancing.  As  in  a  concert, 
so  in  her,  prestissimo  follows  adagio.  I  know  not  what  is 
more  necessary  to  the  present  Largo  di  molto  sitting  than 
the  hop  furioso.  A  ball  is  a  strengthening  snail  and  oyster 
cure  of  crawling  snails  and  sitting  oysters  ;  a  thee  dansant 
is  the  best  cure  for  a  tea-drinking.  The  two  medical  fin- 
gers tread  on  the  foot  as  ten  medical  toes;  and  at  a  masked 
ball  the  uncovered  lady  has  her  pestilence  preserver  in 
her  hand,  as  the  plague  doctors  formerly  went  about  in 
wax  masks.  If  you  want  ladies  to  go  faster  than  posts 
and  couriers,  arrange  an  English  country  dance  between 
Leipsic  and  Dessau,  and  let  the  girls  '  chassez/  then  see 
who  arrives  first,  the  post  or  the  dancers,'*  —  and  so  on. 
For,  however  true  some  of  it  may  be,  it  is  yet  better  placed 
where  it  is,  in  the  twenty-third  volume. 

This  love  of  sitting  also  attacks  the  lesser  branches  of 
family  and  household  affairs,  in  which  women  often  permit 
and  neglect  matters  merely  not  to  have  to  rise  from  their 
seats,  or  unwillingly  purchase  the  exercise  of  their  chil- 
dren with  theu'  own,  or  willingly  delay  physical  and  force 


2o6  LEVANA. 

mental  growth.  In  London  ringing  twice  summons  the 
footman,  thrice  the  chambermaid,  apparently  to  give  time 
to  the  sex. 

§94. 

Now  how  can  this  be  obviated  ?  Just  as  it  is  obviated 
among  the  lower  classes.  Let  a  girl,  instead  of  her  dreamy, 
monotonous  finger-work,  manage  the  business  of  the  house- 
hold, which  every  moment  restrains  dreaminess  and  ab- 
sence of  mind  by  new  duties,  and  calls  on  the  attention ; 
in  early  years  let  her  be  employed  in  everything,  from 
cooking  to  gardening ;  when  older,  from  the  management 
of  the  servants  to  keeping  the  accounts.  What  a  minister 
is  in  a  small  state,  that  a  woman  is  in  her  lesser  state ; 
namely,  the  minister  of  all  departments  at  once,  the  hus- 
band managing  the  foreign  affairs  ;  more  especially  is  she 
the  minister  of  finance,  who,  in  the  state,  according  to 
Goethe,  in  the  last  resort,  regulates  peace,  as  well  as, 
according  to  Archenholz,  the  magazines  of  war.  Even 
noble  ladies  would  be  healthier  and  happier  if  they  fulfilled 
the  duties  of  mattre  d'hotel,  and  femme  de  charge,  I  mean 
for  the  house :  I  know  they  frequently  act  in  both  capa- 
cities for  their  husbands.  Certainly,  as  a  whole,  the  females 
of  the  higher  classes  are  rendered  more  delicately  beautiful 
by  this  absolute  idleness ;  but  such  a  Venus  resembles  that 
of  Rome,  who  was  also  the  goddess  of  corpses  ;  among 
these  may  be  reckoned  her  children,  her  husband,  or  her- 
self. I  do  not  speak  about  the  art  of  cookery,  in  order 
not  to  be  laughed  at  as  Kant  was,  who  wished  that  here 
(as  in  Scotland)  regular  lessons  should  be  given  in  it  as 
well  as  in  dancing.  Rather  will  Seneca's  beautiful  words 
addressed  to  sacrificers  —  "  Puras  Deus,  non  plenas  ad- 
spicit  manus"  (God  regards  pure,  not  fuU  hands) — ac- 
quire a  new  meaning  with  noble  ladies ;  and  they  will 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  207 

suppose  their  husbands  value  pure  white  hands  more 
than  those  which  present  them  some  good  dish  they  have 
cooked. 

But  how  is  it  that  in  the  order  of  female  rank  her  real 
title,  housewife,  is  not  esteemed  higher  ?  Is  it  not  in  that 
capacity  that  as  once  physically,  so  now  financially,  she 
prepares  a  freer  future  for  her  children?  And  can  a 
woman  find  that  in  detail  beneath  her  regard,  in  which,  as 
a  whole,  the  greatest  of  men,  a  Cato  of  Utica,  a  Sully,  and 
others,  sought  their  gloiy  ?  Once  for  all,  the  household 
must  be  managed  in  some  way  ;  and  is  it  better  that  the 
husband  should  add  this  extra  weight  to  his  out-of-door 
duties  ?  If  so,  I  should  merely  be  lost  in  astonishment 
that  the  women  —  for  the  thing  is  practicable,  as  Hum- 
boldt and  others  have  seen  examples  of  it  among  the  men 
in  South  America  —  do  not  commit  to  our  charge  the 
reasonable  and  easy  duty  of  suckling  the  children.  After 
a  little  creative  practice  there  might  be,  instead  of  wet 
female,  wet  male  nurses  :  the  ministers,  presidents,  and 
other  principals  (the  children  carried  after  them  into 
court)  would  stand  it  better  than  the  women,  &c.,  &c. 

For  the  rest,  let  no  more  flighty  than  intellectual  woman 
declare  that  housekeeping,  as  a  mechanical  affair,  is  be- 
neath the  dignity  of  her  mind,  and  she  would  rather  be  as 
mentally  happy  as  a  man.  Is  there,  then,  any  mental 
work  without  hand  work?  Do  accountants'  oflBces,  secre- 
taries' rooms,  the  military  parade,  places  of  the  state,  set 
the  hands  less  in  motion  than  the  kitchen  and  household 
affairs,  or  is  it  merely  that  they  do  so  in  a  different  way  ? 
Can  the  mind  show  itself  earlier,  or  otherwise,  than  behiml 
the  mask  of  the  laborious  body  ?  for  instance,  the  ideal  of 
the  sculptor  otherwise  than  after  milhons  of  blows  and 
chisel-strokes  on  the  marble?    Or  can  this  present  Levana 


2o8  LEVANA. 

appear  in  the  world  and  in  print,  unless  I  make  pens,  dip 
them  in  the  ink,  and  draw  them  up  and  down  ? 

Ye  holy  women  of  German  antiquity  !  ye  knew  as  little 
of  an  ideal  heart  as  of  the  circulation  of  the  pure  blood 
which  flushed  and  warmed  you  when  you  said,  "  I  do  it 
for  my  husband,  for  my  children  "  ;  you,  with  your  anxie- 
ties and  cares,  seeming  only  subordinate  and  prosaic!  But 
the  holy  ideal  descended  through  you,  as  heaven's  fire 
through  clouds,  upon  the  earth.  The  mystic  Guy  on,  who 
in  a  hospital  took  on  himself,  and  fulfilled,  the  duties  of  a 
loathing  maid-servant,  has  a  higher  throne  among  glorified 
souls  than  the  general  who,  with  the  arms  of  others,  yea, 
and  with  his  own,  makes  wounds  which  he  does  not  heal. 
All  strength  lies  within,  not  without ;  and  whether  a  poet 
on  his  printed  sheet,  or  a  conqueror  on  his  missives  and 
treaty-papers,  divide  and  unite  countries,  the  difference  is 
only  externally  so  great  as  that  between  all  and  nothing : 
I  mean  to  the  vulgar. 

§95. 

Women  are  by  nature  intended  for  people  of  business  : 
they  are  called  to  it  by  the  equal  balance  of  their  powers 
and  their  keen  sense  of  observation.  Children  require  an 
ever-open  eye,  but  not  an  ever-open  mouth :  claude  os, 
aperi  oculos.  But  what  circle  of  talking,  which  always 
encloses  only  small  and  trifling  relations,  could  so  well 
exercise  that  ever-present  glance  as  the  circle  of  domestic 
affairs  ?  Boys  destined  for  certain  occupations,  to  be  ar- 
tists, professors,  or  mathematicians,  may  dispense  with  a 
capacity  for  business,  but  never  a  girl  who  will  marry,  — 
especially  one  of  the  above-mentioned  boys.  Above  all 
things,  must  that  wandering,  or  absence  of  mind,  be 
strictly  combated,  which  is  no  fault  of  nature,  but  solely 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  209 

of  the  individual,  and  is  never  the  determining  condition 
of  any  superior  power.  Every  dissipation  of  mind  is 
partial  weakness.  For  instance,  were  the  poet  or  philoso- 
pher, who  wanders  about  so  absently  in  the  outer  world, 
which  is  foreign  to  his  sphere  of  action,  to  work  with 
equal  want  of  reflection  in  his  inner  world,  which  alone 
he  has  to  observe  and  govern,  he  would  certainly  be 
either  mad  or  useless.  The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  op- 
posite case;  if  a  woman,  indifferent  to  the  outer,  practical 
world  in  which  her  business  lies,  neglects  it  for  the  sake 
of  the  inner.  If,  now,  a  girl  is  intended  to  grow  up  with 
a  clear  eye  for  everything  round  her,  —  if  she  is  not  to 
waste  her  many  eyes  in  company,  as  Argus  did  his,  by 
misplacing  them  as  painted  eyes  in  a  peacock's  tail ;  or 
if  she  is  not,  like  that  sea  fish,  the  turbot,  to  have  two 
eyes  on  the  right  side,  but,  in  compensation,  to  be  blind 
on  the  left,  —  let  her  be  many-sidedly  exercised  in  house- 
hold affairs;  and  the  parents  must  not  be  disturbed  if 
some  admirer  of  an  ethereal  bride  should  object  to  her,  as 
Plato  reproached  Eudoxus,  with  having  profaned  pure 
mathematics  by  applying  them  to  mechanics ;  for  to-day 
or  to-morrow  the  wedding  comes,  and  the  husband,  the 
honeymoon  being  past,  kisses  the  mother's  hand  for  all 
that  the  daughter  does  contrary  to  his  expectation. 

§96. 

Let  everything  be  taught  a  girl  which  forms  and  ex- 
ercises the  habit  of  attention,  and  the  power  of  judging 
things  by  the  eye.  Consequently,  botany,  —  this  inex- 
haustible, tranquil,  ever-interesting  science,  attaching  the 
mind  to  nature  with  bonds  of  flowers.  Then  astronomy, 
not  the  properly  mathematical,  but  the  Lichtenbergian 
and  religious,  which  with  the  expansion  of  the  universe 


2IO  LEVANA. 

expands  the  mind,  along  with  which  it  does  no  harm  if  a 
girl  experiences  why  a  longest  night  is  advantageous  to 
sleep,  a  full  moon  to  love.  I  should  also  even  recommend 
mathematics ;  but  here,  unfortunately,  women  who  have 
a  Fontenelle  for  astronomy,  have  not  one  for  mathemat- 
ics ;  for,  with  regard  to  girls,  I  only  mean  those  simplest 
principles  of  pure  and  mixed  mathematics  which  boys  can 
understand.  And  geometry  itself,  as  a  second  eye,  or 
dioptric  line,  which  brings  as  distinct  separations  into  the 
world  of  matter  as  Kant  has  done  by  his  categories  into 
the  world  of  mind,  may  also  be  commenced  early ;  for 
geometrical  observations,  unlike  philosophical,  strain  the 
mind  to  the  injury  of  the  body  as  little  as  the  external 
sense  of  sight.  Sculptors  and  painters  study  mathematics 
as  the  skeleton  of  visible  beauty,  without  injury  to  their 
sense  of  beauty :  I  know  a  little  girl  of  two  years  and  a 
half  old,  who  recognized  in  the  full  foliage  of  nature  the 
dry  paper  skeleton  of  the  mathematical  figures  which  she 
had  learned  to  draw  in  play.  In  the  same  way  these 
little  beings  have  early  developed  powers  of  calculation, 
especially  for  the  important  part  of  mental  arithmetic. 
Why  are  they  not  also  taught  a  multipHcation-table  for 
the  reduction  of  the  various  kinds  of  money  and  yard 
measurements  ? 

Philosophy  is  something  quite  different,  indeed,  diamet- 
rically opposite.  Why  should  these  lovers  of  wisdom  and 
of  wise  men  learn  it  ?  A  lottery-ticket  with  a  great  pre- 
mium has  been  occasionally  drawn  from  among  this  sex, 
—  a  true-bom  poetess  ;  but  a  philosopheress  would  have 
broken  up  the  lottery.  A  woman  of  genius  —  Madame 
Chatelet  —  may  understand  Newton  in  English,  and  ren- 
der him  into  French  ;  but  none  could  do  that  in  German 
for  Kant  or  Schelling.     The  most  spiritual-minded  and 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  211 

intellectual  women  have  a  way  of  their  own,  a  certainty 
of  understanding  the  most  profound  philosophers,  which 
even  their  very  scholars  despairingly  aim  at,  —  namely, 
they  find  everything  easy,  especially  their  own  thoughts, 
that  is,  feelings.  In  the  ever-changing  atmosphere  of 
their  fancy  they  meet  with  every  most  finely-drawn  skel- 
eton of  the  philosophers ;  just  like  many  poetical  follow- 
ers of  the  new  schools  of  philosophy,  who,  instead  of  a 
clearly  defined  circle,  give  us  a  fantastic  circle  of  vapor. 

Geography,  as  a  mere  registry  of  places,  is  utterly 
worthless  for  mental  development,  and  of  little  use  to 
women  in  their  vocations ;  on  the  contrary,  that  is  indis- 
pensable which,  teaching  the  enduring  Uving  history  of 
the  earth,  —  in  opposition  to  that  which  is  transitory  and 
dead,  —  is  at  once  the  history  of  humanity,  which  divides 
itself  into  nations  as  well  as  into  contemporaneous  historic 
periods,  and  also  that  of  the  globe  itself,  which  converts 
the  twelve  months  into  twelve  contemporaneous  spaces. 
The  mind  of  a  girl  attached  to  her  chair  and  her  birth- 
place, like  an  enchanted  princess  in  a  castle,  must  be 
delivered  and  led  forth  to  clearer  prospects  by  the  de- 
scriptions of  travellers.  I  wish  some  one  would  give  us 
a  comprehensive  selection  of  the  best  travels  and  voyages 
round  the  world,  but  shortened  and  adapted  for  the  use 
of  girls  ;  and,  if  the  editor  were  well  furnished  with  Her- 
der's patience  and  insight  into  the  most  dissimilar  nations, 
I  know  of  no  more  valuable  present  to  the  sex.  With 
regard  to  descriptions  of  places,  every  station  requires  a 
different  one,  —  a  merchant's  daughter  one  very  unlike 
that  provided  for  a  princess. 

Almost  all  this  equally  applies  to  petrified  history, 
which  only  conducts  from  one  past  age  into  another. 
For  a  girl  it  can  scarcely  be  too  barren  in  dates  and 


212  LEVANA. 

names.  How  many  emperors  in  the  whole  history  of 
German  emperors  are  for  a  girl  ?  On  the  other  hand,  it 
cannot  be  sufficiently  rich  in  great  men  and  great  events, 
w^hich  elevate  the  soul  above  the  petty  histories  of  towns 
and  suburbs. 

Music,  vocal  and  instrumental,  is  natural  to  the  female 
mind,  and  is  the  Orphean  lute  which  leads  her  uninjured 
past  many  siren  sounds,  and  accompanies  her  with  its 
echo  of  youth  far  into  the  autumn  of  wedded  life. 
Drawing,  on  the  contrary,  if  carried  beyond  the  first 
principles,  which  educate  the  eye  and  taste  in  dress  more 
perfectly,  steals  too  much  time  from  the  husband  and 
children  ;  therefore  it  is  usually  a  lost  art. 

One  foreign  language  is  necessary,  and  at  the  same  time 
quite  enough  for  the  scientific  explanation  of  her  own. 
Unfortunately  French  pushes  itself  most  prominently  for- 
ward, because  a  woman  really  must  learn  it  to  comply 
with  the  necessities  consequent  on  the  billeting  of  French 
soldiers.  I  would  wish  —  why  should  one  not  wish,  that 
is,  do  every  day  of  the  year  what  one  does  on  the  first  ? 
—  that  a  selection  of  English,  Italian,  Latin  words  were 
placed  before  every  girl  as  an  exercise  in  reading,  so 
that  she  might  understand  when  she  heard  them. 

The  talking  and  writing  world  has  sent  into  circula- 
tion so  large  a  foreign  treasury  of  scientific  words,  that 
girls,  who  do  not,  like  boys,  learn  the  words  along  with 
the  sciences,  should  have  weekly  lessons  in  them  out  of 
a  scientific  dictionary,  or  translate  into  comprehensible 
phrases  tales  in  which  such  anti-Campean  words  are  pur- 
posely employed.  I  wish  that  for  this  end  an  octavo 
volume  full  of  foreign  words,  with  an  explanatory  ency- 
clopaedia to  them,  were  published.  The  best  women  read 
dreaming  (the  rest  truly  sleeping)  ;  they  pass  gliding  as 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  213 

easily  over  the  mountains  of  a  metaphysical  book,  as 
sailors  do  over  the  mountainous  waves  of  the  ocean. 
None  of  them  ever  thinks  of  asking  the  dictionary,  nay, 
not  even  her  husband,  what  any  word  means  ;  but  this 
vow  of  silence,  which  regards  asking  questions  as  a  for- 
bidden game,  this  contentment  with  dark  thoughts,  which 
possibly  learns  in  the  twentieth  book  the  meaning  of  a 
scientific  term  used  in  the  second,  ought  to  be  prevented. 
Else  they  will  read  books  as  they  listen  to  men. 

There  is  one  charm  which  all  girls  might  possess,  and 
which  frequently  not  one  in  a  provincial  town  does  pos- 
sess ;  which  equally  enchants  him  who  has,  and  him  who 
has  it  not ;  which  adorns  the  features  and  every  word,  and 
which  remains  imperishable  (nothing  can  exist  longer) 
while  a  woman  speaks  ;  —  I  mean  the  pronunciation  itself, 
the  pure  German  indicating  no  birthplace.  I  entreat  you, 
mothers,  to  take  lessons  in  pure  German  enunciation  and  to 
rehearse  them  constantly  with  your  daughters.  I  assure 
you  —  to  place  the  matter  on  a  firmer  foundation  —  that 
a  vulgar  pronunciation  always  rather  reminds  one  of  a 
vulgar  condition,  because,  in  general,  the  higher  the  rank 
the  better  is  the  pronunciation,  though  not  always  the 
language.  The  higher  ranks,  contrary  to  Adelung's 
change  of  words,  are  not  the  best  musical  artists  of  lan- 
guage (composers),  but  they  are  the  best  deliverers  of  it 
(virtuosi). 

Girls,  unlike  authoresses,  cannot  write  too  much.  It  is 
as  though  on  paper,  this  final  metamorphosis  of  their  dear 
flax,  they  themselves  experienced  one,  and,  in  the  back- 
ward viewing  of  the  rough  and  smooth  external  world, 
won  space  and  rest  for  their  own  inner  world  ;  so  often  in 
letters  and  diaries  do  we  find  women,  the  most  ordinary 
in  conversation,  reveal  an  unexpected  spiritual  heaven. 


214  LEVANA. 

But  the  theme  on  which  and  for  which  they  write  must 
not  be  one  drawn  from  a  learned  caprice,  but  from  the 
observation  of  life,  —  for  their  sensations  and  thoughts 
depend  upon  climate  far  more  than  those  of  boys ;  of 
course  I  speak  of  real  letters,  and  their  own  diaries,  not 
mere  exercises.  From  this  cause  —  that  an  appointed 
goal  marked  and  restrained  their  course  —  the  author  has 
received  so  many  eloquent,  profound,  and  brilliant  letters 
from  feminine,  nay,  masculine  minds,  that  he  has  often 
exclaimed  in  vexation,  "  If  only  five  authoresses  wrote  as 
well  as  twenty  lady  letter-writers,  or  twenty  authors  as 
well  as  forty  correspondents,  literature  would  be  of  some 
value ! " 

§97. 

The  greatest  part  of  the  above  will  help  to  form 
female  power  in  connection  with  female  mind,  activity 
along  with  gentleness :  not  only  in  marriage,  but  in  the 
woman  herself,  ought  there  to  be  a  reflection  of  that 
heavenly  zodiac  in  which  the  lion  shines  beside  the 
virgin.  Intellect  acts  democratically  on  the  mind ;  feel- 
ing, monarchically.  Any  circumstance,  even  dressing 
for  a  ball,  seizes  on  a  woman,  like  the  Romans  on  the 
Sabines,  and  tears  her  from  her  inner  world.  One  who 
before  the  toilet  for  the  ball  can  think  of  anything  better, 
loses  many  more  inches  of  mental  elevation.  The  pres- 
ent governs  none  more  powerfully  with  one  single  idea 
than  minds  which  step  dazzled  out  of  their  little  dream- 
cell  into  the  clear  daylight. 

On  this  is  grounded  the  well-known  experience,  that 
they  are  never  ready  till  it  is  too  late,  and  have  always 
forgotten  something.  But  how  easy  were  it  to  send  a 
daughter  every  week  into  the  struggling  school  of  im- 
provement !     Let  the  father  say,  "  Dear  Nanny,  Fanny, 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  215 

or  Annie,  if  you  are  ready  dressed  in  one  hour,  you 
shall  dance  to-day."  In  a  similar  way  he  might  cure 
them  of  forgetfulness  and  want  of  punctuality  by  pleas- 
ure parties,  as  stipulated  rewards  for  immediate  ces- 
sation from  their  occupations  and  quick  packing  up  of 
all  necessaries. 

§98. 

There  is  just  as  much  to  be  said  against  the  vanity 
of  women  as  against  the  pride  of  men ;  that  is,  just  as 
little.  Charms,  which  like  flowers,  lie  on  the  surface 
and  always  glitter,  easily  produce  vanity ;  hence  women, 
wits,  players,  soldiers,  are  vain,  owing  to  their  presence, 
figure,  and  dress.  On  the  contrary,  other  excellences, 
which  lie  deep  down  like  gold,  and  are  only  discovered 
with  difficulty,  strength,  profoundness  of  intellect,  mo- 
raUty,  leave  their  possessors  modest  and  proud.  Nelson 
could  become  just  as  vain  by  orders  and  the  loss  of  his 
eye  and  arm,  as  proud  by  his  cool  bravery.  No  man 
can  with  sufficient  liveliness  place  himself  in  the  position 
of  a  beautiful  woman,  who,  carrying  her  nose,  her  eyes, 
her  figure,  her  complexion,  as  sparkling  jewels  through 
the  streets,  bhnds  one  eye  after  another  with  her  daz- 
zling brilhance,  and  risks  no  capital  in  exchange  for 
her  profits.  On  the  other  hand,  like  a  man  chained 
and  imprisoned,  the  very  clever  and  learned  rector 
creeps  behind  her,  covering  his  inner  pearls  with  two 
thick  shells :  and  no  one  knows  what  he  knows,  but 
the  man  himself  alone  must  admire  and  dazzle  himself. 

The  desire  to  please  with  some  good  quality,  which 
rules  only  in  the  visible  or  external  kuigdom,  is  so  inno- 
cent and  right,  that  the  opposite,  to  be  indifferent  or 
disagreeable   to  the  eye  or  ear,  would  even  be  wrong. 


2l6  LEVANA. 

Why  should  a  painter  dress  to  please  the  eye,  and  not 
his  wife  ?  —  I  grant  you  there  is  a  poisonous  vanity 
and  love  of  approbation  ;  that,  namely,  which  lowers  the 
inner  kingdom  to  an  outer  one,  spreads  out  sentiments 
as  snaring  nets  for  the  eye  and  ear,  and  degradingly 
buys  and  sells  itself  with  that  which  has  real  inherent 
value.  Let  a  girl  try  to  please  with  her  appearance 
and  her  dress,  but  never  with  holy  sentiments ;  a  so- 
called  fair  devotee,  who  knew  that  she  was  so,  and 
therefore  knelt,  would  worship  nothing  save  herself,  the 
Devil,  and  her  admirer.  Every  mother,  and  every  friend 
of  the  family,  should  keep  a  careful  watch  over  their 
own  wish  to  praise,  —  often  as  dangerous  as  that  to 
blame,  —  which  so  easily  names  and  praises  an  uncon- 
scious grace  in  the  expressions  of  the  heart,  in  the  mien, 
or  in  the  sentiments,  and  thereby  converts  it  forever  into 
a  conscious  one ;  that  is  to  say,  kills  it.  The  counting 
of  his  subjects  lost  them  to  David.  The  gold  presented 
by  demon  hands  vanishes  when  spoken  of.  While  man 
finds  a  cothurnus  on  which  to  raise  and  show  himself  to 
the  world  in  the  judge's  seat,  literary  rank,  the  profes- 
sor's chair,  or  the  car  of  victory,  woman  has  nothing 
save  her  outward  appearance  whereon  to  raise  and  dis- 
play her  inner  nature  :  why  pull  from  under  her  this 
lowly  footstool  of  Venus  ?  And  as  man  stands  in  some 
college  or  corporate  body,  as  in  an  assurance  office  for 
the  maintenance  of  his  honor,  but  woman  only  asserts 
the  lonely  worth  of  her  own  individuahty,  she  must 
attach  herself  to  it  all  the  more  strongly.  Perhaps 
this  is  a  second  reason  why  women  cannot  endure  modi- 
fied praise  ;  for  the  first  is  surely  this,  that  from  want  of 
self-division,  and  owing  to  their  constant  subjection  to 
the  present,  which  always  presents  the  bitter  more  power- 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  217 

fully  than  the  sweet,  they  are  more  sensitive  to  the  limits 
set  to  the  praise  than  to  the  praise  itself. 

We  will  now  pass  to  the  clothes-devil,  as  the  old  theo- 
logians formerly  called  the  toilet. 

What  else  does  a  woman's  dressing-room  signify  than 
the  attiring-room  of  a  theatre  ?  And  why,  then,  are 
there  so  many  sermons  against  it  ? 

The  preachers  do  not  sufficiently  bear  in  mind  the 
following  considerations :  to  a  woman  her  dress  is  the 
third  organ  of  the  soul  (the  body  is  the  second,  and  the 
brain  the  first),  and  every  upper  garment  is  one  organ 
more.  Why?  Because  the  body,  her  true  wedding- 
gift,  is  more  completely  one  with  her  destination  than 
ours  is  with  ours :  while  ours  is  rather  a  pilgrim's  or 
miner's  dress  with  its  protecting  apron,  hers  is  a  coro- 
nation robe,  a  court  suit.  It  is  the  holy  relic  of  an 
invisible  saint,  which  cannot  be  sufficiently  worshipped 
and  adorned ;  and  the  touch  of  this  holy  body  works  all 
kinds  of  miracles.  To  cut  off  a  man's  hand  was  in 
early  ages  scarcely  less  dangerous  than  to  touch  a  wo- 
man's, on  which  pressure  the  Salic  law  lays  a  fine  of 
fifteen  gold  pieces ;  a  violent  kiss  formed  the  ground  for 
a  criminal  indictment ;  and  in  Hamburgh  there  is  still 
a  fine  of  twopence  on  every  kiss  imprinted  in  a  work- 
shop. Hence  dress  and  ornament  must  be  as  important 
to  women  as  varnish  to  paintings ;  they  must  regard 
them  as  a  multiplication  of  their  surfaces  or  facets. 
Hence  for  the  most  part  women  visit  a  "  lying  in  state  " 
to  see  how  people  look  under  the  ground  among  the 
dead.  Perhaps  the  love  of  dress  may  be  among  the 
causes  of  our  having  had  great  female  painters,  but  no 
great  female  musicians;  for  a  great  space  in  women's 
pictures  is  filled  with  dress,  but  in  music  they  think  they 
10 


2l8  LEVANA. 

cannot  be  sufficiently  seen  unless  they  sing.  Hence,  also, 
light  falls  on  the  female  art  of  putting  on  a  shawl  of  a 
Hamilton.  Even  in  old  age  and  on  the  sick-bed,  of  both 
which  a  man  takes  advantage  to  make  himself  comfort- 
able in  night-cap  and  dressing-gown,  they  still  put  on  an 
ornamental  costume,  not  to  please  men,  but  to  please 
themselves :  in  the  most  secret  coffin  of  the  most  lonely 
Carthusian  convent  of  La  Trappe  they  will  not  be  behind 
the  exhumed  corpses  of  Pompeii,  which  advantageously 
display  themselves  to  posterity  in  ornaments  and  ear- 
rings. If  there  were  a  Miss  Robinson  Crusoe  on  a  deso- 
late island,  with  no  one  to  please  but  her  own  reflection 
in  the  water,  she  would  yet  every  day  make  and  wear 
the  newest  fashions.  How  little  they  make  themselves 
into  artificial  work  and  three-cased  watches  for  the  sake 
of  men,  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  they  never  dress 
more  carefully  than  for  ladies'  parties,  where  every  one 
studies  and  vexes  the  rest. 

Unembarrassed  by  witnesses,  each  one  places  herself 
before  her  ideal  world,  —  the  mirror,  —  and  dresses  the 
bridal  pair.  Formerly,  in  France,  every  woman  cai'ried 
a  glass  on  her  person,  apparently  to  be  more  agreeable 
to  her  friends,  and  to  indemnify  them  by  their  own  pic- 
tures for  the  bearer  of  them.  In  Germany,  in  olden 
time,  a  mirror  was  bound  up  with  the  hymn-books, — 
why  is  it  not  so  now  ?  Pity  that  this  loss  of  the  divine 
image  should  be  caused  by  the  want  of  a  looking-glass ! 

On  this  same  gi'ound  of  natural  destination,  not  even 
the  cleverest  can  pardon  the  censure  of  her  personal  ap- 
pearance; she  even  values  its  praise  more  highly  than 
that  of  her  mind.  From  the  time  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth, the  French  kings  have  sworn  never  to  forgive  two 
things,  both  perpetrable  only  between  man  and  man,  — 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  219 

the  duel  and  something  worse.  Women  will  willingly  for- 
give all  save  one  thing ;  not,  indeed,  the  denying  of  their 
charms,  but  the  loud  proclamation  of  some  deformity  or 
want  of  personal  attractions.  And  every  man's  tongue 
which  could  affirm  such  a  thing  is  immorally  cruel. 
Woman,  more  subject  to  the  sensuous  present,  to  ap- 
pearance and  opinion,  than  we  are,  must  painfully  feel 
her  affirmed  unsightliness  to  have,  as  her  beauty  has,  a 
wide-extending  influence.  I  should  even  consider  this 
very  speaking  of  it  cruel,  did  I  not  know  from  my  own 
experience,  as  well  as  from  that  of  others,  that  a  woman's 
lovely  heart  as  completely  effaces  all  external  blots,  as  an 
unlovely  one  does  all  personal  charms ;  and  that  a  fair 
soul  has  at  most  only  the  first  moment,  but  a  foul  one  the 
whole  future,  to  dread.  Woman's  body  is  the  pearl  oys- 
ter ;  whether  this  be  brilliant  and  many-colored,  or  rough 
and  dark  from  the  place  of  its  birth,  yet  the  pure  white 
pearl  within  alone  gives  it  value.  I  mean  by  this  thy 
heart,  thou  good  maiden,  thou  who  expectest  not  to  be 
appreciated,  but  only  to  be  misunderstood ! 

From  the  destination  of  women  may  possibly  be  de- 
rived the  greater  coldness  and  severity  with  which  women 
of  rank  treat  their  female  domestics  ;  they  cannot  conceal 
from  themselves  many  resemblances  and  many  possibili- 
ties of  exchanged  circumstances ;  in  which  husbands,  to 
whom  more  is  attributed  in  the  proposition  of  indiffer- 
ence than  in  that  of  contradiction,  readily  confirm  them. 
Women,  especially  beauties,  regard  very  little  the  differ- 
ence of  mental  cultivation;  men  that  only,  in  regard  to 
their  servants ;  and  Pompey,  assured  of  his  victory,  did 
not  ask  whether  his  cook  looked  as  he  did. 

Woman's  love  of  dress  has,  along  with  cleanliness, 
which  dwells  on  the  very  borders  between  physical  na- 


220  LEVANA. 

ture  and  morality,  a  next-door  neighbor  in  purity  of 
heart.  Why  are  all  girls  who  go  out  to  meet  princes 
Tvith  addresses  and  flowers  dressed  in  white  ?  The  chief 
color  of  the  mentally  and  physically  pure  Englishwomen 
is  white.  Hess  found  white  linen  most  used  in  free 
countries ;  and  I  find  states  all  the  more  modest  the  freer 
they  are.  I  will  become  no  surety  for  the  inner  purity 
of  a  woman  who,  as  a  counterpart  to  the  Dominicans,  who 
wear  white  in  the  cloister,  but  black  when  abroad,  only 
puts  on  the  color  of  purity  when  walking  in  the  streets. 

I  might  speak  of  the  wardrobe,  —  the  female  library ; 
for  our  white  cloth  consists  of  black  on  white.  I  might 
also  ask  whether  girls  do  not  love  clothes  more  on  this 
account ;  because  they  make  many  of  them,  and  conse- 
quently enjoy  all  the  more  heartily  a  gaiment  they  have 
made  in  their  own  little  summer-house.  But  the  more 
immediate  question  is,  how  the  water-shoots  of  a  flower- 
ing branch  ingrafted  by  nature  are  to  be  repressed  or 
cut  ojff. 

Animate  the  heart,  and  it  no  longer  thirsts  for  common 
air,  but  for  ether.  No  one  is  less  vain  than  a  bride. 
Mark  out  for  your  daughter  any  long  course  to  some  im- 
portant business,  and  she  will  look  the  seldomer  about  her. 
A  true  vvork  takes  possession  of  the  author  as  well  as  af- 
terwards of  the  reader,  —  neither  thinks  any  more  about 
himself.  In  a  sea-fight,  no  Nelson  is  vain;  in  a  land- 
fight,  no  Alcibiades;  in  a  council  of  state,  no  Kaunitz. 

Let  a  daughter  learn  and  exemplify  the  artistic  charm 
of  dress  on  other  persons. 

Treat  her  as  an  artistic  manikin,  and  lay  the  value  on 
the  product  itself;  she  may  then  regard  herself  as  an 
actress  who  does  not  become  a  queen  by  means  of  her 
dress.    Costly  clothes  make  much  vainer  than  pretty  ones. 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  221 

Do  not  permit  nurses,  ladies'-maids,  and  such-like 
locusts,  to  praise  and  deify  the  dressed-up  girl :  yes,  even 
keep  a  sharp  eye  on  her  playfellows,  especially  those  of 
lower  rank ;  because  they  readily  lose  theu*  astonishment 
at  the  fine  dress  in  admiration  of  the  wearer. 

Ascribe  to  cleanhness,  symmetry,  propriety  of  dress, 
and  all  the  aesthetic  requisites  of  beauty,  their  brilliant 
and  true  worth ;  so  a  daughter,  like  a  poet,  forgets  her- 
self in  her  art  and  in  her  ideal,  and  her  own  beauty  in 
what  is  beautiful.  She  will  be  a  painter  who  paints  her- 
self, —  whom  not  the  original,  but  the  copy,  charms. 
Finally,  if  the  mothers  are  not  their  own  incessant  pur- 
veyors of  fashionable  dress,  nor  a  fruitless  tulip- bed  of 
modish  colors,  much,  if  not  all,  is  done  for  the  daughters. 

§99. 

I  could  write  a  whole  paragraph  merely  in  favor  of 
cheerfulness  and  merriment  in  girls,  and  dedicate  it  to 
mothers,  who  so  frequently  forbid  them.  But  seriously  to 
assure  girls  they  may  laugh  on  suitable  occasions  would 
look  very  much  like  presenting  them  an  opportunity  of 
doing  so.  Mothers  have  much  a  habit  of  grumbling, 
even  though  they  may  smile  inwardly;  the  daughters, 
on  the  contrary,  generally  only  laugh  visibly.  The  for- 
mer have  passed  out  of  the  triumphant  church  of  virgins 
into  the  church  militant  of  matrons ;  their  growing  duties 
have  increased  their  seriousness  ;  the  bridegroom  is 
changed  from  a  honey-bird,  who  invited  them  to  the 
sweets  of  the  honeymoon,  into  a  resolute  honey-hunting 
bear,  who  will  himself  have  the  honey. 

Then  all  the  more,  O  mothers,  grant  these  dear  light- 
hearted  beings  their  sports  around  the  flowers;  their 
minute's  play  before  long  years  of  serious  duties.     Why 


222  LEVANA. 

may  not  with  them,  as  with  the  Romans,  comedy  precede 
tragedy  ?  If  the  boy  may  be  a  zephyr,  why  may  not  the 
girl  be  a  zepyhrette  ?  Is  there  in  the  whole  range  of  life 
anything  so  beautiful,  so  poetical,  as  the  laughing  and 
joking  of  a  maiden  who,  still  in  the  full  harmony  of  all 
her  powers,  plays  with  everything  in  luxurious  freedom, 
and  neither  mocks  nor  hates  when  she  jests  ?  For  girls, 
the  antipodes  of  fish,  which,  as  is  well  known,  are  not 
only  deaf,  but  also  possess  no  diaphragm,  have  and  impart 
the  true  sportiveness  of  poetry,  so  difficult  for  authors  to 
imitate,  so  unhke  satire  and  the  humor  of  men.  Their 
seriousness  is  rarely  so  innocent  as  their  fun ;  and  still 
less  innocent  is  that  supercilious  discontent  which  con- 
verts the  virginal  Psyche  into  a  heavy,  stupid,  humming, 
wing-drooping  moth,  a  death's-head,  for  instance.  The 
melancholy  night-flier  may  possibly  please  the  lover ;  but 
the  husband  requires  his  day  Psyche,  for  marriage  de- 
mands cheerfulness.  In  a  certain  Libyan  people  the 
young  man  married  that  girl  among  his  guests  who 
laughed  at  his  jokes ;  perhaps  my  meaning  is  contained 
in  that  custom. 

Laughing  cheerfulness  throws  sunlight  on  all  the  paths 
of  life.  Peevishness  covers  with  its  dark  fog  even  the 
most  distant  horizon.  Sorrow  causes  more  absence  of 
mind  and  confusion  than  so-called  levity.  If  a  woman 
can  perform  this  comedy  impromptu  in  married  life,  and 
occasionally  enliven  the  serious  epic  of  the  husband,  or 
hero,  by  her  amusing  heroic  ballads,  or  get  up,  as  the 
Romans  did,  a  merry  farce  against  misfortunes,  she  will 
have  bribed  and  won  joy,  and  her  husband,  and  her 
children. 

Never  fear  that  feminine  merriment  precludes  depth 
of  soul  and  feeling.     Does  it  do  so  in  men?     And  did 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  223 

not  the  lawgiver  Lycurgus,  and  his  Spartans  everywhere, 
build  an  altar  in  his  house  to  Laughter  ?  It  is  precisely 
under  external  cheerfulness  that  the  quiet  powers  of  the 
heart  increase  and  grow  to  their  full  stature.  How  heav- 
enly must  it  be,  then,  when  for  the  first  time  the  smiling 
face  weeps  for  love,  and  the  irrepressible  tears  mirror  the 
whole  gentle  heart ! 

Wherefore,  ye  mothers,  do  not  merely  suffer,  but  assist, 
your  daughters  to  become  externally  French  girls,  inter- 
nally German,  and  to  convert  life  into  a  comic  poem, 
which  surrounds  its  deep  meaning  with  merry  forms.  I 
know  few  books  to  recommend  for  this  purpose  —  we 
men  always  think  of  these  first  when  advice  is  to  be 
given  —  besides  the  letters  of  the  incomparable  Sevigne. 
But  wit,  mere  wit,  is  —  in  opposition  to  aesthetics  —  the 
comedy  and  humor  of  women ;  an  epigram  is  to  them  a 
humorous  chapter,  a  Haug  or  a  Martial,  a  Sterne  or  an 
Aristophanes.  They  will  laugh  themselves  ill,  or  rather 
well,  about  the  curious  marriage  of  the  great  and  little  ; 
which  only  seems  no  mis-alliance  to  man  surveying  the 
long-connected  chain  of  being.  But  laugh  away!  and 
may  your  mothers  read  you  many  epigrams !  I  wish 
much  there  were  a  suitable  selection  of  these  for  girls, 
and  a  few  comic  works  written  expressly  for  them,  which 
would  certainly  sound  very  French  !  Then  let  the  dear, 
merry  children  laugh  to  their  hearts'  content  among  one 
another,  and  especially  at  any  grave,  pompous  man  who 
comes  among  them,  even  were  he  the  author  of  this 
ninety-ninth  paragraph. 

§  100. 

Inquiries  might  still  be  made  concerning  the  education 
of  women  of  genius,  and  one  of  a  pecuhar  nature  required 


224  LEVANA. 

for  them.  But  I  will  only  insist  the  more  strongly  on 
the  necessity  of  an  ordinary  one  for  them,  which  may  act 
as  the  balance  and  counterpoise  of  their  fancy.  Genius  — 
which  with  wonderful  works  as  with  holy  festivals  breaks 
into  the  common  course  of  the  week  —  cannot  be  learned, 
can  be  very  little  taught,  and  not  at  all  overcome ;  and 
will  boldly  raise  its  brow  above  time  and  sex  and  every 
diflficulty.  Talent,  not  genius,  can  be  repressed,  that  is, 
annihilated  ;  just  as  a  compound  can  be  destroyed,  that  is, 
decomposed,  but  not  a  simple  power.  And  truly,  were 
the  repression  of  genius  by  circumstances  possible,  we 
should  never  once  have  experienced  its  existence.  For 
then  genius,  always  appearing  only  as  the  one  intercalary 
day  of  many  years,  as  one  single  day  contradicting  and 
voting  against  a  majority  of  1460  days,  must  have  fallen 
a  prey  to  the  opposing  tendencies  of  its  age,  —  that  is,  to 
tendencies  which,  enslaving  men  from  the  earliest  times, 
would  bind  them  down  to  the  latest,  —  as  a  horse  to  the 
multitudinous  stings  of  bees.  Nevertheless,  genius  has 
existed,  for  we  have  the  word.  They  whom  it  inspired 
made,  like  other  generals  and  monarchs  of  this  world, 
separate  treaties  of  peace  with  their  neighbors,  and  only 
after  death  a  general  one  with  the  whole  world. 

But  if  a  man  of  genius  must  also  be  a  man  and  a  citi- 
zen, and,  if  possible,  a  father  too,  a  woman  must  not  sup- 
pose herself  elevated  by  her  genius  above  her  appointed 
day-labor  in  life.  If  a  Jean  Jacques  write  upon  educa- 
tion, an  intelligent  Johanna  Jacquelina  need  not  be 
ashamed  of  the  occupation  of  intelligent  men ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  rare  excess  of  female  talent  should  rather 
be  an  additional  call  to  education,  than  a  passport  for 
neglecting  it. 

But  if  women  are  ever  ashamed  of  acting  up  to  the 


EDUCATION    OF    GIRLS.  225 

ideas  on  which  they  pride  themselves,  their  destiny 
avenges  itself  upon  them  justly  and  severely. 

First,  justly.  For  woman  is  appointed  to  be  the  Vesta, 
or  vestal  priestess,  of  home,  —  not  the  sea-nymph  of  the 
ocean.  The  fuller  she  is  of  an  ideal  perfection,  the  more 
must  she  endeavor  to  express  it  in  reality ;  as  the  ideal 
of  all  ideals  —  God  —  has  manifested  himself  in  the 
world ;  she  should  educate  a  daughter  as  he  educates 
the  whole  human  race.  If  a  poet  can  express  his  ideal 
as  well  in  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Dutch  school  as  in 
the  far  horizon  of  the  Italian,  wherefore  should  she  not 
be  able  to  express  hers  in  the  kitchen,  store-room,  and 
nursery  ? 

And,  secondly,  the  punishment  of  the  neglected  rela- 
tions of  life  is  severe,  A  woman  can  never  forget  to 
love,  though  she  be  a  poet  or  a  ruler.  Then,  instead  of 
children,  women  of  genius  seek  the  society  of  men.  By 
these  they  expect  to  be  loved  as  women,  though  they 
themselves  only  love  as  men.  So  they,  like  flying-fish 
between  the  two  elements,  hover  between  manhood  and 
womanhood,  injured  by  both,  and  persecuted  in  both  king- 
doms. They  then  become  the  more  unhappy  the  wider 
their  intellectual  circle  extends ;  a  poetess,  for  instance, 
becomes  more  so  than  a  painter. 

But,  if  they  unite  their  woman's  destiny  with  genius, 
a  mighty  and  rare  blessedness  fills  their  hearts;  the 
clouds  which  pour  their  floods  in  the  valleys,  gently 
dissolve  on  their  heights  as  on  mountain-tops. 

What  is  most  to  be  desired  for  such  heads  is  a  crown, 
a  prince's  or  a  ducal  coronet ;  and  this  brings  us  to  the 
next  chapter. 

10*  o 


226  LEVANA. 


CHAPTER    V. 

PRIVATE   INSTRUCTIONS    OF    A    PRINCE   TO    THE    GOVERNESS 
OP   HIS    DAUGHTER. 

§101. 

PERMIT  me  to  embody  in  a  dream  the  few  thoughts 
I  have  to  offer  on  the  education  of  princesses. 
The  dream  of  which  I  speak  elevated  me  at  once 
above  all  middle  grades  into  the  rank  of  princes  ;  an 
elevation  you  will  please  to  ascribe  less  to  secret  vener- 
ation than  to  excessive  newspaper  reading.  It  seemed 
to  me,  then,  that  I  was  called  Prince  Justinian,  and  my 
consort  Theodosia,  the  mother  of  the  Princess  Theoda, 
and  our  governess  Pomponne,  apparently  some  French 
surname.  The  private  instructions  which  I  imparted,  my 
princely  hat  upon  my  head,  to  Madame  de  Pomponne, 
may  sound  sufficiently  dreamy  in  somewhat  of  the  follow- 
ing form  :  — 

My  dear  Pomponne,  I  like  going  at  once  openly  to 
work.  What  my  consort  arranged  with  you  yesterday, 
about  Theoda's  education,  I  ratify  with  pleasure,  because 
she  wishes  it :  but  as  soon  as  you  have  read  my  wishes 
on  this  subject,  I  confidently  expect  some  private  alter- 
ations in  the  list  of  rules  which  has  been  laid  before  you. 
For  truly  I  give  out  my  laws  as  readily  as  another, 
though  I  also  intentionally  receive  some ;  one  cannot 
always  have  the  crown  close  at  hand  in  one's  pocket,  as 
the  German  emperors  formerly  carried  their  imperial 
insignia  along  with  them  in  every  journey  :  but  let  people 
beware  of  resembling  my  royal  cousins,  who,  as  the  an- 
cient Persian  kings  dared  refuse  nothing  to  their  queens 


A    PRINCE'S    INSTRUCTIONS.  227 

on  their  birthday,  scarcely  ever  close  their  birthday  festi- 
vals. 

I  confess  that  shortly  after  my  nuptials,  I  hoped  my 
wife,  like  those  in  humbler  stations,  might  possibly  take 
upon  herself  the  education  of  a  future  princess,  and  that 
you  would  merely  have  borne  the  title  of  governess.  In 
fact,  when  I,  who  best  know  what  a  longest  day  and  a 
longest  night  combined  in  one  four-and-twenty  hours  sig- 
nify, take  into  consideration  the  tedium  of  a  court,  I  should 
think  that  a  princess,  who  must  feel  it  even  more  severely 
than  a  prince,  would  for  that  very  reason  gladly  expend 
her  time  and  her  whims  on  the  education  of  a  daughter. 
Since  one  becomes  so  weary  of  courtiers,  who,  like  people 
in  boots  and  stirrups,  always  think  they  stand  on  the  pal- 
ace floor  most  securely  with  bended  knees,  that  one  actually 
longs  for  dogs  and  parrots  and  monkeys,  because  they, 
indifferent  to  rank,  are  always  free,  new,  and  interesting ; 
surely  my  child,  who  in  a  court  belongs  to  the  small  num- 
ber of  my  equals,  and  therefore  ventures  freely  to  say 
what  she  thinks,  must  be  even  more  interesting.  And 
should  not  an  excellent  royal  mother,  who  can  devote 
whole  years  to  a  painting  or  a  piece  of  embroidery,  more 
gladly  sit  to  herself  and  paint  herself  in  the  living  copy 
of  her  daughter  ?  And  why  do  the  simple  priests  at  the 
altar  only  pray  that  princesses  may  become  happy  moth- 
ers, and  not  that  they  should  continue  such  by  educating 
their  children  ? 

But  these  are  only  questions.  There  are  many  diffi- 
culties which  my  beloved  Theodosia  could  not  so  easily 
overcome  as  my  paternal  imagination  fancied.  For  the 
rest,  she  is  so  loving  and  tender  a  mother,  as  you  will 
yourself  experience,  that  she  seldom  or  never  permits  a 
week  to  pass  without  once  sending  to  call  Theoda. 


228  LEVANA. 

Nevertheless,  dear  Pomponne,  much,  indeed  most,  de- 
pends upon  your  love  and  attention  to  the  child.  I  yes- 
terday heard  and  subscribed  the  long  chapter  on  external 
propriety,  royal  female  dignity  and  reserve ;  so  let  that 
be  ;  and  I  will  myself,  at  the  right  time,  procure  the  prin- 
cess a  dancing-master  from  Paris,  who  shall  instruct  her 
in  the  art  of  raising  or  letting  fall  her  train.  But,  my 
good  lady,  I  hope  you  will  not  carry  too  far  that  self-con- 
fining fence  round  every  step,  that  consideration  of  every 
verbal  expression,  that  squeezing  mould,  and  that  crooked 
or  straight  bending  of  the  body.  O,  my  good  Theoda ! 
must  it  be  so  ?  Court  is  indeed  a  pays  cotUumier,  and 
only  the  country  a  pays  du  droit  civil,  which  the  regal 
palace  least  of  all  is.  Many  attitudes  and  impetuosities 
which  in  my  officers  I  should  regard  as  improprieties 
and  offences  against  my  majesty,  are  in  me,  the  master, 
treated  (perhaps  from  flattery)  as  original  traits,  as  pi- 
quant and  amiable  peculiarities  ;  and  the  earnest  wish  is 
expressed  that  they  may  be  frequently  repeated.  Acting 
on  this  method  of  interpretation,  I  pray  you  to  permit  the 
princess  always  to  run  a  little.  After  my  marriage  I  be- 
came acquainted  with  one  of  the  fairest  and  most  amiable 
princesses,  —  excepting,  of  course,  your  mistress,  —  who 
had  the  charming  ill-manners  —  anything  else  in  her 
were  not  to  be  supposed  —  of  never  moving  in  a  concert- 
room,  or  other  assembly,  save  at  a  running  pace  with  full 
sails.  And  what  said  the  court  and  foreign  princes,  my- 
self among  the  rest,  to  this  }  We  all  praised  her  animar 
tion.  Now,  had  she  been  twelve  years  old,  and  her 
governess  present,  that  celestial  animation  might  have 
excited  a  fire  of  a  very  different  description. 

Must,  then,  poor,  unhappy  princesses  be  deprived  of  all 
soul,  and  converted  into  mere  machines  of  propriety,  and 


A    PKINCE'S    INSTRUCTIONS.  229  ' 

be  placed  in  the  court  as  in  an  ice-oven,  through  which 
the  little  naphtha-flame  cannot  pass  ?  Must  a  princess  be 
indeed  so  closely  imprisoned  that  she  may  never  venture 
to  cross  a  bridge  on  foot,  except  the  fancy  park-bridge  ? 
Are  tears  the  best  princess's  washing-water'^  It  is  at 
least  fortunate  that  we  princes  have  given  our  name  to 
something  harder,  —  prince's  metal.  Must  not  the  poor 
children,  in  later  years,  be  bound  down  in  formality  with 
golden  chains,  pompously  introduced  into  life's  desert 
where  love  is  not,  and  banished  under  the  polar  sky  of 
the  throne,  which  sends  forth  as  much  fog  and  frost  as 
does  the  actual  pole  ?  Even  a  ruling  master  lies  op- 
pressed under  it,  who  could  be  very  different,  and  thunder. 
By  all  means,  let  everything  during  public  exhibitions 
and  festivMs  be  measured  and  cold  ;  but  not  so  when  she 
is  alone  with  you.  White  gravel  may  lie  glittering  and 
smooth  on  the  garden-walks,  but  no  one  uses  it  in  flower- 
beds. The  Duke  of  Lauzun  said.  To  make  princesses 
love  you,  treat  them  harshly  and  scold  them  unceasingly. 
You  will  certainly  not  confound  this  ducal  method  of  se- 
curing love  with  that  to  be  adopted  by  a  teacher.  You 
admire,  as  I  heard  you  say  on  Sunday,  the  Scandinavian 
mythology :  tell  me,  now,  would  you  wish  only  to  be 
Nossa  *  to  my  daughter  and  not  also  Gefione  ?  Health 
is  the  true  Gefione ;  and  may  this  goddess  lead  Theoda 
by  the  left  hand,  as  well  as  Nossa  by  the  right ! 

Certainly  a  beautiful  princess  has  more  subjects  than 
her  prince,  and  certainly  nowhere  does  female  beauty  dis- 
play its  bloom  so  perfectly  as  on  the  Alps  of  the  throne  ; 
but  my  offspring  will  not  give  to  posterity  a  perfectly 
bloomed  flower.  The  prince's  hall,  in  which,  as  in  a  for- 
tress, the  German  future  lays  down  its  safety  and  its  free- 
*  The  goddess  Nossa  gave  maidens  beauty ;  Gefione,  protection. 


230  LEVANA. 

dom,  must  indeed  be  built  by  fair  and  tender,  but  also  by 
strong  hands.  If  every  mother  is  a  being  of  importance, 
I  should  think  a  royal  mother  is  one  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance. If  I  can  only  arrange  it  so,  Theoda  shall  ac- 
company me  next  July,  and  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
accompanying  you.  I  will  then  effect  much.  It  is  stated 
in  the  Indian  travels  of  the  old  Mandelsloh,  that  only  the 
kings  among  birds  of  paradise  have  feet ;  apparently  we 
princes  are  only  birds  of  paradise,  and  every  common 
person  is  our  king.  But  at  that  time  my  Queen  Theoda 
shall  go  on  foot ;  and,  what  is  more,  she  shall  ride  on 
horseback,  which  no  Roman  Dictator  ventured  to  do.  I 
really  do  not  like  to  think  how  the  health  of  royal  per- 
sons must  be  undermined  by  things  which  they  probably 
drink  every  day ;  had  I  an  hereditary  prince  royal,  I 
should  almost  lose  my  senses  with  anxiety. 

I  should  wish  you  to  allow  my  Theoda  to  read  more 
English  than  French  books,  and  more  German  than  both. 
I  know  not  what  witty  author  *  has  shown  the  similarity 
of  the  courtly  and  worldly  tone  of  mind  to  that  of  the 
French  literature  ;  at  the  same  time,  the  thought  is  strik- 
ing. In  a  French  book  we  always  live  in  the  fashion- 
able world,  and  at  court ;  in  a  German  book,  occasionally 
in  villages,  and  in  the  market-place.  I  must  also  have 
the  princess  lose  some  of  that  awful  ignorance  about  the 
people,  which  makes  her  imagine  them  only  a  multitudi- 
nous repetition  of  the  fat  servants  who  stand  behind  her 
chair,  to  remove  her  plate  and  clear  the  table.  She  must 
not  fancy  that  a  beggar  cannot  be  relieved  with  silver 
coin,  because  for  convenience  she  only  carries  with  her 
gold.     This,  however,  is  but  a  very  small  matter.     In 

*  This  was  I  myself  in  the  third  volume  of  the  Jlsthetics ;  but  in 
dreams  the  best-known  things  are  forgotten. 


A    PRINCE'S    INSTRUCTIONS.  23I 

German  books,  as  a  whole,  there  predominates  a  healthy 
force  of  affections,  boldness  of  language,  love  of  moral- 
ity and  religion,  carefully  balanced  understanding,  sound 
common  sense,  unbiassed  all-sidedness  of  view,  hearty  love 
of  human  happiness,  and  a  pair  of  eyes  which  look  to- 
wards heaven.  Now,  if  this  German  strength  and  purity 
be  ingrafted  on  a  mind  tenderly  formed  by  sex  and  rank, 
it  must  necessarily  bear  the  loveliest  flowers  and  fruits. 

A  French  library,  on  the  contrary,  —  if  I  do  not  judge 
unjustly,  imbittered  by  Gallic  newspaper-writers,  and  by 
my  old  loyal  tutors,  —  is  nothing  better  than  a  kind  of  an- 
te-room or  exchange.  Theoda  would  only  read  in  it  what 
she  every  day  hears  ;  —  the  same  softness  of  speech  with 
hardness  of  thought  (just  as  mineralogists  append  to  their 
newly  discovered  stones  the  soft  Greek  termination  ite,  as 
Hyalite  or  Cyanite ;  —  the  same  flattery  of  diametrically 
opposed  occurrences,  because  the  man  of  the  world  re- 
sembles the  Epicurean  who  denied  that  a  proposition  was 
either  true  or  false  ;  —  the  same  resemblance  in  other 
matters  of  the  worldly  man  and  the  Frenchman  to  the 
Epicurean  school  which,  unlike  every  school  of  philoso- 
phy, had  no  sects  because  the  whole  school  agreed  about 
wine  and  meats,  women  and  God.  No,  no,  let  my  The- 
oda read  her  Herder  and  Klopstock  and  Goethe  and 
Schiller ;  she  will  hear  enough  of  Voltaire  from  her 
chamberlains.  You,  dear  friend  of  children  and  of 
French  people,  are  a  quite  sufficient  French  library. 
Formerly  in  German  courts  —  not  merely  in  mine  — 
your  countrymen  and  their  works  were  equally  welcome 
and  effective  ;  as  if  what  the  Romans  found  in  real  life, 
that  Gallic  slaves  made  the  best  shepherds,  were  also 
true  figuratively,  and  that  your  nation  could  furnish  the 
best  shepherds  of  the  shepherds  of  the  people,  —  that  is  to 


232  LEVANA. 

say,  tutors  of  princes,  —  and  also  the  best  shepherds  of  the 
people,  —  that  is  to  say,  princes. 

Only  do  not  forget  Rousseau  and  F^nelon,  nor  Ma- 
dame de  Necker  and  her  Memoires.  A  book  more  deli- 
cate, refined,  elegant,  religious,  and,  moreover,  interesting, 
is  scarcely  to  be  found  for  well-educated  women  than  this 
by  Madame  de  Necker,  whose  jewels  possess  as  much 
medicinal  virtue  as  color  and  brilliancy.  But  her 
daughter,  Madame  de  Stael,  may  postpone  leaving  her 
cards  for  my  daughter  until  the  girl  is  old  enough  to 
receive  so  intellectual  a  visit. 

German  princesses  now  fill  and  unite  almost  all  Euro- 
pean thrones  ;  as  — if  I  dare  speak  so  pedantically  — 
Aurora's  rosebuds  do  the  mountain-tops.  Formerly,  as 
Thomas  remarks,  heathen  princes  were  converted  to  a 
better  rehgion  by  their  marriages  with  Christian  prin- 
cesses. This  achievement  cannot  now  be  expected  from 
any  princess  ;  but  it  is  well  for  her  if  she  have  been  brought 
up  in  a  pure  religion.  He  who  has  no  higher  and  firmer 
heaven  above  his  head  than  the  canopy  of  the  throne,  com- 
posed of  wood  and  velvet,  is  very  circumscribed,  and  has 
but  a  narrow  prospect.  And  he  who,  on  the  blooming 
heights  of  humanity,  attains  no  happiness,  is,  if  he  pos- 
sess not  God  in  his  heart,  more  helpless  than  the  most 
lowly,  who,  in  lamenting  over  his  own  humble  condition, 
seeks  the  hope  of  improvement.  Religion  only  can  re- 
ward and  arm  with  energy,  tranquillity,  life,  and  peace 
princesses  who,  like  Narcissus,  are  too  frequently  sacri- 
ficed to  an  infernal  deity.  By  what  other  aid  could 
women  in  former  ages,  when  there  was  less  refinement, 
endure  and  even  forget  to  grieve  at  the  rudeness  and  cru- 
elty of  men,  than  by  that  of  religion,  which  transfigured 
many  an  hour  of  tears  into  one  of  prayer  ?    A  woman,  to 


A    PRINCE'S    INSTRUCTIONS.  233 

whom  so  much  perishes  ere  she  herself  dies,  needs,  more 
than  a  man  does,  something  which  may  accompany  her 
as  a  glorious  star  from  youth  to  age.  And  what  is  the 
name  of  this  star  ?  In  the  morning  of  life,  it  is  the  star 
of  love,  later,  it  is  only  called  the  evening  star. 

Henry  the  Eighth  of  England  forbade  women  to  read 
the  New  Testament ;  the  age,  alas  !  does  so  now.  Hap- 
pily for  my  wishes,  I  know  you  and  your  sex.  An  unbe- 
lieving princess  is  almost  as  rare  as  a  believing  prince. 
In  earher  ages,  it  is  true,  we  find  Gustavus,  Bernard, 
Ernest,  and  some  others,  anchored  to  religion  as  to  a  firm 
mountain.  My  position  may  possibly  lead  me  astray,  but 
I  confess  that,  to  every  ideal  I  form  of  female  beauty,  a 
throne  is  the  footstool.  —  My  travels  may  form  an  excuse 
for  this,  —  but  so  it  has  always  been  with  my  ideals  of 
woman's  mental  beauty,  and  I  have  ever  seen  it  crowned. 
"  With  thorns  ?  "  you  ask.  "  Probably,"  I  answer,  "  but 
also  with  gold." 

In  short,  I  believe  that  a  certain  ideal  delicacy  and 
purity  of  the  female  soul  can  be  developed  nowhere  so 
beautifully  as  in  the  highest  position,  —  on  the  throne,  — 
as  the  loveliest  flowers  bloom  on  mountains,  and  the  sweet- 
est honey  comes  from  hilly  countries ;  two  resemblances 
which  hold  forth  a  promise  of  the  third.  As  female  na- 
ture for  her  fairest  flowers  requires  forms  and  customs, 
which  may  be  compared  to  fine  soil  and  elegant  vases, 
whereas  man's  roots  can  press  through  and  burst  open 
the  hardest  earth  and  rocks  ;  so  she  finds  what  alone  she 
needs  at  court,  which  is,  confessedly,  all  form  and  custom, 
and  that  of  the  narrowest  and  most  absolute  description, 
—  I  do  not  say  this,  self-laudatorily,  of  my  own,  —  for  the 
mere  fact  of  an  education  among  the  highest  ranks,  as 
well  as  the  contemplation  of  the  most  refined  politeness, 


234  LEVANA. 

—  these  forms  and  reflections  of  morality,  —  will  be  there 
not  only  as  the  reversed  and  dim  counterpart,  but  as  the 
original  bright-colored  rainbow.  I  might  also  adduce  de- 
cency, honor,  propriety  (of  the  men  as  well  as  of  the 
women),  delicacy,  forbearance,  which  are  all  required  by 
courts  ;  and  not  merely,  as  is  falsely  supposed,  in  the 
public,  but  also  in  the  private  personal  demeanor  ;  I  mean 
in  every  word  by  which  the  courtier  expresses,  not  him- 
self, but  something  better,  —  a  moral  seeming. 

Woman's  virtue  is  the  music  of  string  instruments, 
which  sounds  best  in  a  room ;  but  man's  that  of  wind 
instruments,  which  sounds  best  in  the  open  air.  As  men 
always  act  most  honorably  in  public,  —  the  act  of  cow- 
ardice which  might  be  committed  in  a  closet  or  in  a  wood 
becomes  impossible  at  the  head  of  an  army  or  a  nation, 
and  as  we  royal  martyrs  in  our  apartments  too  much 
resemble  the  Greek  tragic  actors  whom  the  Chorus  never 
left  for  a  moment  alone  on  the  stage,  and,  finally,  as 
women,  avoiding  the  observation  of  many  eyes,  yet  pay 
regard  to  them  by  the  fairest  actions,  my  proposition  is 
natural. 

I  can  still  add  something.  The  princess,  free  from  dis- 
tracting labor  in  the  rough  service  of  life,  placed  in  the 
mild  climate  of  physical  repose,  advantageous  to  the  heart 
as  well  as  to  the  beauty,  brought  up  rather  to  observation 
than  to  action,  at  least  unless  she  absolutely  will,  without 
compulsion,  enter  that  black  pit  of  statecraft,  at  whose 
mouth  prince  and  minister  throw  off  the  mantle  of  love, 
as  they  would  give  their  servants  a  woollen  cloak  to  hold, 
I  really  do  not  remember  how  or  why  I  began  ;  but  I  do 
know  this,  that  the  nobler  class  of  women,  even  after  a 
long,  black,  funereal  train  of  misanthropical  experiences, 
still  keep  alive  their  loving  heart  and  genuine  feeling ; 


A    PRINCE'S    INSTRUCTIONS.  235 

whereas  men  in  such  cases,  yes,  even  sometimes  after 
one  single  grievous  misfortune,  bury  their  desolate  lost 
heart  in  the  perpetual  hatred  of  their  species.  A  wo- 
man could  more  easily  close  forever  her  mouth  than  her 
heart 

Why  waste  many  words  ?  I  have  seen  excellent  prin- 
cesses. Without  the  advantages  of  the  throne  they  would 
have  lost  much,  and  without  its  disadvantages,  the  rest. 
In  fact,  patience,  a  httle  suffering,  and  that  of  the  mind,  — 
as  when,  for  instance,  years  convert  the  wedding-ring  into 
a  chain, — and  other  things  of  a  similar  nature,  form  within 
the  flower  the  fruit,  and  within  that  the  seed  of  a  heavenly 
life. 

To  this  head  belongs  the  patience  necessitated  by  the 
courtly  tedium  of  our  rank.  The  Sabbath  was  especially 
ordained  by  Moses  as  a  rest-day  for  slaves  ;  but  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  day  of  rest  which  at  court  is  converted  into  a 
day  of  unrest.  As  often  as  my  people  envies  me  during 
these  tumultuous  festivals,  I  seem  to  myself  to  resemble 
the  Spartan  helots  who  were  flogged  to  death  to  the  sweet 
sound  of  flutes. 

My  dear  Theodosia  would  gladly  have  her  daughter  as 
highly  gifted  as  herself,  and  therefore  strongly  impressed 
upon  you  the  desirability  of  cultivating  her  imagination. 
It  is,  perhaps,  because  I  myself  am  of  a  drier  and  harder 
nature,  and  prefer  keeping  myself  warm  with  my  wings 
to  flying  far  up  into  the  cold  ether,  that  I  lay  so  very 
much  stress  on  my  daughter's  possessing  sound  common 
sense.  Indeed,  if  I  could,  I  should  like  to  undermine  this 
powerfulness  of  imagination.  Fancy  in  a  princess  pro- 
duces a  great  many  fancies  in  a  prince,  hence  arise  storms 
in  the  royal  atmosphere,  and  all  kinds  of  volcanic  products, 
burning  of  the  treasure-closets,  maledictions  on  the  crown 


236  LEVANA. 

jewels,  and  much  else  that  I  could  name.  K  a  fanciful 
woman  could  carry  the  whole  verdure  of  the  country,  in 
its  meadows  and  its  woods,  compressed  and  poetically  sub- 
limed into  one  ring,  on  her  finger,  in  the  shape  of  the 
largest  emerald  —  by  Heavens  !  Pomponne,  she  would  do 
it !  Therefore,  I  would  most  gladly  exchange  it  for  a 
sound  understanding,  if  I  had  it  not.  I  grant  one  can 
make  but  very  little  show  with  it,  but  then  one  can  judge 
all  the  more  correctly.  And  this  I  certainly  know,  that 
many  a  princess,  who,  during  her  husband's  reign,  mod- 
estly showed  herself  as  nothing  more  than  a  sensible,  affec- 
tionate mother  and  wife,  could,  after  his  death,  (I  pray 
you  call  to  mind  the  widow  of  my  dear  old  friend  in 
M — g — n,)  replace  the  father  by  the  mother  of  her 
country,  and  with  her  clear  eye,  and  ear  open  to  instruc- 
tion, rightly  guide  the  vessel  of  the  state.  Fancy  and 
fancies  on  the  throne,  round  which,  as  round  other  heights, 
more  winds  blow  than  behind  the  low  hull  of  the  ship,  are 
only  full-spread  sails  in  a  storm,  which  the  captain,  or  the 
understanding,  ought  to  take  in. 

I  would  wish  Theoda  to  have  as  much  cheerfulness  as 
possible,  but  wit  only  in  moderation.  The  latter,  when 
united  with  good  sense  and  a  constant  kindly  heart,  may 
perhaps  guide,  or,  at  all  events,  drive,  the  prince  consort, 
as  the  weak  sorceress  formerly  ruled  the  Devil ;  but  wit 
alone,  without  heart,  salt  without  meat,  transform  a  woman, 
like  Lot's  wife,  who  became  a  pillar  of  salt,  from  whom 
the  old  Lot  parted  and  went  on  his  way. 

But  to  return  to  the  imagination.  I  should  be  glad, 
Madam,  if  you  could  discover  or  excite  in  my  daughter 
a  talent  for  either  music  or  drawing.  Music,  if  only  lis- 
tened to  and  not  scientifically  cultivated,  gives  too  much 
play  to  the  feelings  and  fancy  ;  the  difficulties  of  the  art 


A    PRINCE'S   INSTRUCTIONS.  237 

draw  forth  the  whole  energies  of  the  soul.  Hence  a  cer- 
tain priest,  Hermes,  in  Berlin,  recommended  girls  to  be 
taught  thorough-bass.  Drawing  also  is  good,  although  it 
has  the  disadvantage  of  giving  too  much  preponderance  to 
a  woman's  naturally  keen  eye  for  forms.  One  thing  or 
the  other ;  a  painting,  for  instance,  at  which  a  princess  has 
labored  for  about  half  a  year,  if  it  has  not  been  produced 
with  the  help  of  the  court  artist,  as  private  instructor  and 
father  of  the  piece,  would  to  her  —  a  bee  imprisoned  in 
the  variegated  tulip-bed  of  the  court  —  smell  sweetly  as 
the  flowers  ;  for  thus  she  possesses  something  which  she 
sees  daily  grow  under  her  hands,  in  which  consists  the 
happiness  of  life.  The  old  Saxon  princess,  who,  as  I  have 
read,  embroidered  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  on  a  robe,  was 
certainly  as  happy,  yes,  happier,  while  embroidering  it, 
than  in  the  robe  itself.  At  the  present  day  half  her 
heaven  would  have  been  stolen  from  her,  since,  as  I  hear, 
we  no  longer  possess  the  left  bank. 

With  regard  to  female  vanity,  you  need  do  —  that  is, 
say  —  nothing  ;  for  every  word  in  your  apartment  is  use- 
less if,  in  the  evening  at  tea  or  in  the  concert-room,  Theoda 
hear  the  very  opposite  from  grave  men  and  women,  who 
think  to  do  honor  at  the  same  time  to  both  rank  and  sex, 
and  by  this  very  confounding  of  both  constantly  intrude 
the  latter  on  the  poor  child.  As  she  grows  older,  a  very 
marked  admiration  becomes  the  duty  of  every  courtier, 
since,  unfortunately,  the  stupid  printed  genealogical  tables 
every  year  declare  the  age  of  a  princess  ;  in  London  they 
act  in  a  still  more  foolish  fashion,  and  actually  shoot  the 
number  of  years  into  people's  ears  by  the  discharge  of 
cannon;  therefore,  she  need  not — hke  the  modern  Roman 
women,  whose  dislike  of  perfumes  keeps  them  at  a  distance 
from  the  altar  with  its  incense  —  retreat  from  the  admi- 


238  LEVANA. 

ration  naturally  attendant  on  her  rank  and  sex,  but  simply 
remain  standing. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  most  important  point ;  namely, 
—  all  of  religion  and  human  happiness  which  I  have  hith- 
erto desired  at  your  hand  for  Theoda  must  assist  and  be 
subservient  to  her  princely  destiny,  and  not  by  any  means 
work  against  it.  Consolation  and  fortitude  I  would  wish 
her  to  draw  thence,  but  no  arms  against  her  parents'  will. 
This,  between  ourselves,  is  what  I  mean.  Since  my  last 
travels,  I  do  not  feel  by  any  means  certain  that,  in  eight 
or  ten  years,  my  Theoda,  regarded  as  a  cement  of  severed 
lands,  or  rivet  of  different  crowns,  may  not  be  united  to  a 
prince,  whom,  which  Heaven  forbid !  she  may  from  her 
heart  detest.  To  this  fear  royal  parents  must  submit :  in 
fact,  I  must  regai'd  the  glory  of  my  house ;  and  I  have 
always  considered  children  as  royal  pledges,  whom  I  have 
only  to  place  as  far  from  me  as  possible  in  order  to  win  an 
extension  of  territory.  Wherefore,  Madam,  on  this  point 
my  daughter  must  learn  to  give  no  other  answer  than  yes. 
Would  that  bridegrooms  were  as  easily  selected  by  diplo- 
macy as  brides  !  Still  some  good  may  be  made  out  of  the 
worst  case  ;  and  on  the  rocks  of  the  throne,  against  which 
others  make  shipwreck,  we  can  only  bleed.  A  woman, 
previously  so  undetermined,  and  obedient  to  the  whole 
compass  of  male  zephyrs,  becomes,  under  the  influence  of 
a  fixed  husband,  who  determines  her  fate,  a  steady  trade- 
wind.  The  most  ugly  often  becomes,  at  the  altar,  or 
shortly  afterwards,  the  most  beautiful ;  and  a  similar 
change  often  accompanies  precisely  opposite  conditions. 
The  priest's  words,  like  lightning  on  the  magnet,  easily 
reverse  the  position  of  the  positive  and  negative  poles. 

But  too  much  of  this.  I  consider  my  little  future  son- 
in-law  to  be  honorable,  and  no  one  yet  knows  what  kind 


A    PRINCE'S    INSTRUCTIONS.  239 

of  a  man  may  grow  out  of  the  merry  boy.  But  even 
supposing  that  the  priestly  blessing  were  to  the  princess  a 
priestly  anathema,  and  that  her  honeymoon  were  passed 
in  courtly  mourning,  yet  I  cannot  help  her,  at  all  events 
before  she  gives  her  hand. 

It  is  true,  that  in  Loango  a  princess,  and  only  a  prin- 
cess, can  choose  what  husband  she  will ;  and  in  Homer 
Penelope  had  a  hundred  and  eight  wooers,  without  reck- 
oning the  absent  husband ;  but  that  is  of  no  avail  to  our 
princesses,  especially  before  marriage,  for  those  are 
neither  our  times  nor  countries.  Diplomatic  marriages 
must  be  like  English  soldier  marriages,  provided  not 
merely  hands  and  hearts,  but  whole  countries  are  to  be 
united.  Should  it  really  happen  that  a  throne  became  a 
Gold-Coast  where  a  daughter  was  sold  into  a  slave-ship, 
then  you  can  give  her  no  fairer  princess's  dowry  and 
marriage-gift  than  a  mother's  heart ;  this  will  compensate 
her  for  all  her  sacrifices :  a  child's  love  is  more  certain 
than  a  husband's. 

After  such  confidence,  I  require  from  you  no  other 
answer  than  the  future,  which  the  governess  of  a  princess 
holds  more  surely  in  her  hand  than  does  the  tutor  of  a 
prince ;  for  the  latter  is  relieved  and  removed,  and  his 
successors  less  resemble  the  popes,  each  of  whom  con- 
tinued the  building  of  St.  Peter's  church,  than  princes, 
who,  for  the  most  part,  leave  the  buildings  of  their  pre- 
decessors unfinished.  You,  on  the  contrary,  may  long 
lead  Theoda  by  the  hand ;  perhaps  even  till  you  resign  it 
into  that  of  her  husband.     May  you  succeed  well ! 

Justinian. 

My  dream  came  to  an  end  along  with  my  letter,  and  I 
arose.     But  as  I  laid  aside  the  crown  along  with  my 


240 


LEVANA. 


nightcap,  and  became  as  usual  a  private  person,  a  critic 
who  should  blame  anything  in  my  instructions  would 
prove  nothing  more  than  that  he  was  ignorant  of,  or  in- 
dilBferent  to,  Kant's  axiom,  that  a  deposed  sovereign  can 
never  be  punished  for  faults  committed  by  him  on  the 
throne.  It  is  something  quite  diifferent  when  I  am  awake, 
and  then  fall  into  errors. 


FIFTH  FRAGMENT, 


CHAPTER    I. 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE. 


§  102. 

ANY  readers,  especially  critical  ones,  will 
probably,  without  my  aid,  make  the  remark 
and  the  reproach,  that  in  the  former  Chapters 
I  have  treated  of  the  particular  before  the 
general,  —  of  the  education  of  women  before  that  of  men, 
which  extends  into  a  wider  sphere  of  moral,  intellectual, 
and  aesthetical  development ;  and  that,  again,  in  this  Chap- 
ter the  particular  education  of  kings  is  placed  before  the 
general  one  of  men.  And,  truly,  in  the  fragment  about 
girls,  readers  will  miss  any  systematic  order,  and  only 
find  a  systematic  want  of  order  for  women.  Now,  should 
any  one  forget  to  make  these  remarks  and  reproaches, 
they  are  here  set  down  ready  for  him. 

Moreover,  in  treating  of  the  education  of  a  prince,  the 
author  must  again  avail  himself  of  the  kind  reader's  for- 
mer permission  to  turn  letter-writer ;  but  in  this  instance 
he  did  not  dream  a  letter  in  bed,  but  really  sent  the  sub- 
joined one  by  post. 

11  p 


242  LEVANA. 

LETTER 

ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    PRINCES,  ADDRESSED    TO  MR.  A  DEL- 
HARD,    prince's    TUTOR    AND    PRIVY    COUNCILLOR. 

Baireuth,  October  1, 1805. 

Your  invitation,  my  dear  friend,  to  visit  you  and  the 
prince  at  his  country  residence  could  not  have  come  more 
opportunely  than  just  now,  when  I  am  in  the  very  act  of 
packing  up  and  taking  flight,  because  the  lava  stream 
of  war  seems  to  take  its  course  toM^ards  our  country. 
And,  what  is  still  better,  I  am  at  present  engaged  on  a 
doctrine  of  education  in  fragments,  one  of  which,  at  least, 
must  contain  a  few  words  about  the  education  of  royal 
children ;  and  I  am  very  much  mistaken  if  I  shall  not 
find  with  you  that  Magna  Charta  and  electoral  franchise 
which  is  the  most  important  for  a  prince ;  namely,  that 
which  the  tutor  lays  down  and  prescribes  for  the  little 
prince.  In  fact,  I  expect  from  you  two  patterns  :  one  of 
a  teacher,  and  one  of  a  pupil. 

If  you  will  not  regard  it  as  a  jest,  dear  Adelhard,  I 
will  now  write  a  long  letter,  divining  and  predicting 
what  you  have  begun  and  accomplished  with  your  pupil, 
merely  that  I  may  place  the  letter  among  my  frag- 
ments as  a  pocket-mirror  for  princes'  tutors.  It  seems 
to  me  that,  when  I  prophesy,  my  predictions  at  once 
become  rules. 

For  I  have  a  kind  of  dislike  absolutely  to  lay  down 
rules.  If  one  must  place  one's  self  in  the  soul  of  the 
pupil,  in  order  thence  to  educate  him,  the  task  becomes  in 
the  highest  degree  difficult  for  any  fellow-creature,  es- 
pecially for  the  tutor  of  a  prince ;  because  the  external 
conditions  of  royalty  differ  from  ours,  not  in  degree,  but  in 
kind.     Kingly  government  is  totally  different  from  any 


ON    THE  EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       243 

Other :  we  only  experience  power  over  parts,  not  over  the 
whole ;  we  see  approaches  to  ourselves  both  from  above 
and  from  below:  the  prince  sees  none;  but  the  highest 
and  the  lowest  servants  of  the  state  are  to  him  equally- 
distant  from  the  throne,  equally  incapable  of  holding  the 
sceptre.  While  common  plants  are  contented  with  the 
common  earth  and  air,  the  prince,  like  a  plant  of  foreign 
growth,  requires  a  peculiar  soil,  a  southern  aspect,  and  a 
hothouse. 

Therefore  the  choice  of  the  royal  gardener  is  all  the 
more  important.  Fortunately,  the  kingdom  of  education, 
at  least,  is  an  elective  monarchy.  Even  the  court  — 
which  formerly  employed  learned  men,  as  the  fair  Span- 
iards use  glowworms  at  night,  only  as  glittering  gems, 
but  not  as  the  Indians  do  fireflies,  as  lights  —  regards 
the  choice  of  a  prince's  tutor  as  a  matter  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  break  it  up  into  sects.  Do  you  not  remember 
the  Schismatics  and  Separatists  in  the  court  of  Flachsen- 
fingen  about  the  choice  of  the  prince's  tutor?  I  once 
related  them  to  you  on  the  very  best  authority,  in  the 
presence  of  the  principal  governess  of  the  royal  children. 
You,  dear  Adelhard,  were  only  selected  by  the  father  and 
mother  for  their  child,  so  that  no  one  should  be  able  to 
say  which  of  the  four  human  beings  was  the  most  for- 
tunate. But  in  Flachsenfingen  the  queen-mother  and  her 
party  declared  in  favor  of  the  flat  dull-gold  court  preacher, 
— the  king  and  his  adherents  concurred  in  desiring  to 
secure  my  services ;  the  third  party,  that  of  the  lord  high 
chamberlain  and  his  worn-out  favorite,  the  chief  govern- 
ess, all  my  declared  enemies,  unanimously  voted  for  that 
genteel,  nice  young  man,  whom  we  all  pretty  well  know, 
that  wretched  powder  without  report,  which  every  one 
previously  avoided.     So  very  wisely  does  a  court  know 


244  LEVANA. 

how  to  unite  the  happiness  of  the  country  with  the  good 
fortune  of  its  own  relatives,  by  seeking  the  former  through 
the  latter !  This  is  the  reason  why  courtiers  do  not  ap- 
pear by  any  means  so  unselfish  and  honorable  as  they  are. 
Just  as  the  banker  at  a  great  gaming-table  fastens  to  his 
hat  the  card  (let  us  suppose  it  the  ace  of  hearts)  upon  or 
against  which  he  will  not  bet ;  so  the  marshal  by  a  golden 
star,  and  the  governess  by  a  golden  heart,  as  symbols  of 
light  and  love,  showed  which  were  the  two  cards  on  which 
they  would  never  lose  or  win  anything.  This  is  what 
many  people  call  intriguing  for  the  choice  of  the  prince's 
tutor. 

Charles  the  Great,  owing  to  his  physical  strength,  was 
called  an  army:  every  prince,  owing  to  his  political 
power,  may  be  regarded  as  a  moral  army ;  and  this  army 
at  first  has  no  other  generalissimo  than  the  tutor.  He 
alone  may  fre-ely  instruct  and  touch  the  mind,  which,  in 
after  years,  will  neither  experience  nor  suffer  contradic- 
tion. This  task  is  more  easy  and  varied  than  that  of  any 
future  favorite  ;  for  he  has  only  wax,  not  marble,  to  shape. 
He  may  be  bold  enough  to  oppose  and  punish  the  pas- 
sions of  the  little  prince,  which  his  subsequent  attendants 
will  only  use  and  misdirect.  Yes,  he  may  carry  his  in- 
fluence so  far  —  which  never  minister  or  favorite  yet 
did  —  as  to  gain  such  a  victory  as  Fenelon,  who  trans- 
formed an  ill-disposed  Duke  of  Burgundy  into  a  pure, 
noble-minded  man,  whose  premature  death  probably 
opened  the  entrance  into  the  great  catacomb  of  the  last 
century.  The  knowledge,  the  habits,  the  principles,  the 
tastes,  which  he  may  give  or  leave  to  his  pupil,  work 
either  for  or  against  all  future  influences.  He  may,  in  a 
spiritual  light,  imitate  the  men  who  carried  torches  before 
the  Roman  emperors,  even  in  the  daytime.      In  short,  he 


ON    THE   EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       245 

may  —  if  he  possess  the  power  within  himself —  combine 
in  one  office  both  the  characters  of  that  Dionysius,  who 
was  a  king  in  Sicily,  a  schoolmaster  in  Corinth.  Let 
him  at  least  strive  to  do  so !  For  to  the  perfect  formation 
of  a  political  prince  a  man  of  moral  power  is  necessary ; 
he  may  be  called  tutor  to  the  prince,  but  he,  in  fact,  as  a 
spiritual  father,  first  gives  permission  to  wear  the  crown ; 
—  as  the  pope,  in  his  character  of  holy  father,  gave  a 
similar  permission  to  the  Jesuit,  John  the  Third,  to  assume 
that  of  Portugal. 

Is  there,  then,  my  friend,  for  the  whole  human  race, 
not  merely  for  the  royal  parents,  a  higher  moral  and  in- 
tellectual sphere  of  action  than  that  of  tutor  to  a  prince, 
who,  perhaps,  in  the  royal  child  holds  in  his  power  the 
future  of  half  a  century,  —  a  something  which  may  either 
be  the  fructifying  germ  of  an  oak  forest  or  the  powder- 
train  of  a  mine  for  his  country  ?  If  it  be  granted  that 
the  first  circumstances  of  a  man's  education,  as  the  deep- 
est and  richest,  bear  all  the  rest  which  time  heaps  on  him, 
I  cannot  consider  the  wish  too  bold,  but  only  natural,  that, 
as  there  are  normal  schools  for  teachers,  so  there  should 
be  at  least  one  of  that  kind  for  the  tutors  of  princes. 

But  I  will  now  —  so  as  to  have  something  to  put  in  my 
book  —  cast  the  nativity  of  the  past  and  present,  and 
predict  what  you  have  done  and  are  now  doing. 

I  suppose,  from  your  residence  in  the  country,  that  you 
will  as  frequently  as  possible  forbid  the  court  to  your 
Friedanot  (a  fine-sounding  and  significant  name!),  and 
persuade  his  parents  to  see  him,  for  the  most  part,  with- 
out lookers-on.  If  the  cloud  of  flattery  may  be  to  a 
prince  a  falling  mist,  it  is  to  a  royal  child  a  rising  mist, 
which  is  followed  by  dark,  bad  weather.  How  else  than 
by   distance  can   you   protect  your  Friedanot  from  the 


246  LEVANA. 

ladies  of  the  court,  who  must  press  around  him,  al- 
lured by  his  three  graces,  of  being  a  prince,  a  child,  and 
a  boy.  Than  this  union  there  can  be  nothing  greater  in  a 
woman's  eyes.  As  the  Emperor  of  Morocco,  so  Agrell 
tells  us,  is  drawn  by  a  team  of  twelve  state-horses  when 
he  takes  a  drive ;  so  our  little  heir  to  the  crown  can  com- 
mand, when  he  will,  twelve  children's  carriages,  each  with 
a  dozen  lady-drawers.  And  when  at  last  he  becomes 
twelve  years  old,  he  will  be  absolutely  worshipped  before- 
hand, so  as  to  secure  his  adoration  afterwards.  Chai'acter 
and  childhood  are  both  at  once  destroyed  by  early  gal- 
lantries which  incite  to  gallantries. 

The  men  of  the  world  reserve  their  influence  for  this 
age.  If  anything,  like  poison  on  the  nerves,  destruc- 
tively opposes  the  earnestness  of  a  royal  tutor's  labors,  — 
or,  indeed,  of  any  teacher,  —  it  is  the  worldly  views  of 
worldly  people,  even  when  honorable  and  impartial.  Like 
the  founder  of  their  order,  Helvetius,  these  modern  Helve- 
tians, in  whom  no  Caesar  finds  an  enemy,  can  be  good- 
natured,  lovers  of  the  arts,  farmer-generals  and  every- 
thing good,  but  not  martyrs  to  their  faith  nor  keepers 
of  their  word.  In  other  respects  these  Helvetians  are 
good  enough ;  like  their  geographical  namesakes,  they  are 
lovers  of  cold,  —  herdsmen  on  the  heights  for  which  their 
homesick  hearts  long ;  no  gold,  no  Swiss,  —  united  by 
confederacy,  —  upright  in  deeds,  if  not  in  words,  —  with- 
out much  money ;  mere  door-keepers  of  palaces,  —  in 
short,  men  who  willingly  stand  and  suiFer  themselves  to 
be  ordered  about,  as  guards  and  hirelings  in  the  court  of 
a  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  But  such,  Adelhard,  are  not  fit 
companions  for  an  heir  apparent.  If  you  have  to  conduct 
your  pupil  through  two  totally  different  worlds,  out  of  the 
one  into  the  other,  —  out  of  that  really  great  world  in 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF   A    PRINCE.       247 

which  only  nobility  of  soul,  character,  great  principles,  and 
comprehensive  views  are  valued,  —  where  only  the  de- 
spisers  of  pleasure  and  the  passing  hour,  the  men  of  eter- 
nity stand,  —  where  an  Epaminondas,  a  Socrates,  a  Cato, 
still  speak  from  their  tombs,  and  deliver  oracles  as  from  an 
everlasting  Delphic  cavern,  —  where  earnestness  of  pur- 
pose and  man  and  God  bring  all  things  into  life ;  out  of 
this  into  that  world  of  sham  greatness,  in  which  all  that  is 
great  and  departed  is  little  esteemed,  and  what  is  trifling 
and  present  is  alone  held  important,  —  where  everything  is 
custom,  and  nothing  duty,  not  to  mention  kingly  duty, — 
where  the  whole  country  is  looked  upon  as  an  estate,  all 
offices  as  appendages  of  the  crown  ;  where  inspiration 
seems  a  passing  love-affair,  or  a  mere  artistic  talent,  —  if 
you  have  to  do  this,  must  not  all  these  glittering  influences 
destroy  that  of  the  tutor  ?  Must  not  the  child  become  at 
least  a  kind  of  double  creature,  a  double  stone,  half  dia- 
mond and  half  common  court  crystal,  which  needs  but  the 
application  of  heat  to  sever  the  scholastic  addition  from 
the  courtly  mass,  — just  as  other  double  stones  are  tried 
and  burst  asunder  by  heat. 

You  are,  then,  right  in  regarding  the  easy  attainment 
of  a  glitteringly-cut  outside  as  a  small  recompense  for  the 
damage  done  by  people  of  the  world.  Must  he  not,  with- 
out your  help,  pass  his  whole  hfe  among  decorators  and 
manufacturers  of  cosmetics,  as  under  curling-machines  for 
royal  heads?  And  will  easiness  of  demeanor  ever  become 
difficult  to  him  who,  from  the  freedom  of  an  upright  pos- 
ture, has  but  to  return  bows  ?  Nevertheless  it  will  do  so; 
everything,  crime  excepted,  becomes  princes  ;  they,  like 
great  artists,  are  permitted  many  external  peculiarities ; 
nay,  are  imitated  in  them  :  and  what  in  lower  stations  is 
considered  want  of  good  manners,  in  the  highest  is  held  to 


248  LEVANA. 

denote  their  superabundance,  or  at  all  events,  to  be  a  veil 
of  Moses  drawn  over  the  splendor  of  the  crown.  Stiff 
citizen  manners  occupy  only  the  middle  place,  the  extrem- 
ities approach  one  another  so  closely  that  in  the  highest 
ranks  the  freedom  of  the  savage  is  renewed. 

But  you  will  reply  to  me  in  your  next  letter,  and  com- 
plainingly  say,  I  can  take  my  Friedanot  nowhere  but  a 
court  will  follow  him :  where  a  prince  stamps  his  foot,  a 
courtly  circle  rises,  —  as  an  army  did  at  the  approach  of 
Pompey,  —  and  the  altars  of  incense  smoke  around  him  ; 
for  truly  the  middle  and  lower  ranks  flatter  their  prince 
more  injuriously,  that  is,  more  grossly  and  slavishly,  than 
the  nobility.  It  is  probably  on  this  account  that  many 
novel-writers  think  they  present  us  with  the  most  beauti- 
fully sculptured  heads  of  princes  on  their  coin,  by  merely 
permitting  the  little  dauphin,  prince  of  Calabria,  prince  of 
Brazil,  protector  of  England,  to  be  educated  and  kept  in 
perfect  ignorance  of  his  future  rank.  In  this  case  the 
dauphin  apparently  imitates  the  Mamelukes,  by  the  laws 
of  whose  empire  only  he  may  ascend  the  throne  who  was 
not  born  upon  it.  The  opponents  of  these  few  novel- 
writers  are  merely  the  whole  class  of  historians.  For 
although  Machiavelli  remarks,  that  the  best  among  the 
Roman  emperors  were  those  who  had  been  adopted,  yet 
—  besides  the  exception  of  Augustus,  who  adopted  him- 
self to  the  government,  and  also  besides  that  of  many 
emperors  chosen  by  the  senate  and  the  praetorian  band  — 
other  histories  are  opposed  to  that  of  Rome  ;  take,  for  in- 
stance, that  of  the  East,  which  never  depicts  viziers,  beys, 
and  sultans,  brought  up  in  slave-ships,  and  promoted  to 
the  ranks  of  pilot  and  captain,  as  better  princes  than 
others.  Further ;  have  the  popes  made  better  rulers 
because  they  were  not  born  to  be  popes  ?     And  when,  as 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF   A    PEINCE,       249 

on  the  extremity  of  the  opponent's  chess-board,  a  pawn 
may  become  a  queen,  —  a  peasant,  Massaniello,  for  in- 
stance, become  a  king,  —  is  his  government,  therefore,  so 
very  markedly  different  from  that  of  those  who  had  ex- 
pected it  for  twenty  years  ?  And,  moreover,  in  the  olden 
time  was  not  every  usurper  and  poisoner  of  freedom  a 
man  who  in  liis  childhood  had  possessed  no  prince's 
tutor,  no  court,  no  royal  father? 

A  prince,  on  the  contrary,  can  never  contemplate  soon 
enough  the  Tabor  of  the  throne,  so  that  in  after  years  he 
may  be  gloriously  transfigured  on  it,  and  not  hang  as  a 
cloud  on  the  mountain.  It  is  the  Sinai  on  which  he,  pray- 
ing, shall  receive  the  laws,  which,  in  their  reflected  bright- 
ness, he  is  to  carry  down  to  the  desert.  I  could  recom- 
mend no  other  refuge  from  anticipated  courts  for  an  heir 
apparent  than  a  foreign  country,  where  the  native  prince 
would  draw  away  all  flatterers  from  the  stranger.  But 
the  evils  consequent  on  the  necessary  contemplation  of  his 
future  high  rank  may  be  guarded  against  in  many  ways. 
A  child's  views  of  life  must  necessarily  be  confused  if  his 
master  is  at  the  same  time  his  servant,  or,  like  a  bad  royal 
tutor,  a  compound  of  tyrant  and  slave.  There  may  be 
inequality,  but  let  it  be  upwards.  With  us  lower  people 
every  father  is  at  times  the  fellow-laborer  and  fellow- 
teacher  of  the  schoolmaster ;  should  not  the  father  of 
his  country  also  occasionally  be  the  father  of  his  son  and 
successor  ?  Antiquity  holds  out  the  example  of  princes 
who  were  the  playfellows  of  their  children  ;  how  much 
more  praise  would  they  merit  as  their  teachers !  I  can 
imagine  no  more  honorable  group  than  a  royal  father 
among  his  sons,  earnestly  instilling  into  them  the  high 
laws  of  the  kingly  office,  which  he  himself  religiously 
observed. 

11* 


250  LEVANA. 

But  if  the  affairs  of  government  occupy  too  much  of  the 
father's  time,  or  if  this  recreation  would  abstract  him  too 
much  from  business,  the  queenly  mother  is  still  there  with 
the  powerful  influence  of  her  heart  and  of  her  leisure. 
Baron,  the  actor,  said,  that  a  tragedian  should  be  nursed 
in  the  lap  of  queens.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  dauphin, 
whom  he  represents  and  imitates,  claims  the  first  place 
there ;  and  such  a  mother  will  be  more  usefully  em- 
ployed teaching  her  son,  than  her  husband  how  to  govern. 
"  Crowned  mother,  do  for  your  son  what  the  uncrowned 
mother  of  the  Gracchi  did  for  hers,  so  that  he  may  be  as 
noble  as  either  of  them,  and  more  fortunate  than  both." 
So,  my  dear  Adelhard,  would  I  speak  almost  in  public,  in 
the  hope  of  perhaps  cheering  some  princess  who  has  thus 
acted. 

It  were  also  desirable  if  kings'  children  could  associate 
with  their  equals  in  the  school-room  ;  —  I  mean  if  there 
were  a  school  for  princes  in  a  higher  sense  than  that  near 
Naumburg.  We,  linked  together  in  a  community  of  chil- 
dren, were  all  educated  under  the  mutual  influence  of 
equals  ;  the  heir  to  the  throne  sits  in  the  room  alone  with 
his  tutor.  Princes  learn  the  art  of  war  only  with  an  army 
of  fellow-students  ;  perhaps  that  is  an  additional  reason 
why  they  understand  and  like  it  best. 

I  am  not  without  the  expectation  that  you  attempt  to 
preserve  Friedanot,  although  he  is  now  more  than  eleven 
years  old,  from  poison  to  a  childlike  mind,  by  obliging  him 
to  pay  deference  to  age  and  merit.  As  yet  he  is  merely  a 
subject  like  his  tutor,  and  even  his  mother.  This  is  a 
matter  of  great  importance  ;  for  the  child  who  does  not 
respect  grown-up  people  as  such  readily  enters  the  path 
of  contempt  for  his  fellow-men,  —  a  vice  very  prevalent 
on  the  throne.     If  rank,  especially  a  prospective  one,  out- 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       251 

weighs  the  man,  to  whom  properly  alone  he  ought  to  bow ; 
in  after  years  the  masses  of  citizens  will,  in  his  princely 
eye,  resemble  those  stags'  heads  in  Fontainebleau  under 
which  was  inscribed, — "Such  or  such  a  Louis  did  me  the 
honor  of  shooting  me  " ;  and  the  smaller  select  number 
will  be  like  certain  royal  stag-hounds  in  the  same  country, 
which  a  courtier  addressed  as  "  Vous,  Monsieur  Chien," 
though  in  former  times  the  term  "monsieur"  was  only 
applied  to  the  saints,  and  afterwards  was  refused  even  to 
the  five  directors  of  Paris.  Since  in  the  eye  of  princes, 
as  in  that  of  the  law,  or  still  better  in  the  union  of  both, 
individual  peculiarities  are  lost  in  one  living  mass  of  souls, 
it  is  an  easy  change  for  a  crowned  despiser  of  humanity 
to  regard  those  souls  as  the  mere  mechanism  of  peace  and 
war,  till  one  man  only  seems  to  exist,  —  himself. 

Therefore,  let  a  prince,  as  long  as  he  is  a  child,  always 
measure  merit  by  inches  ;  for  inches  are  to  him  yet  as 
though  they  were  long  years,  and  years  as  munificent 
gifts.  It  is  certainly  a  trifle  that  you,  as  I  venture  to 
guess,  contrary  to  custom,  do  not  permit  the  servants  to 
help  the  prince  first  when  older  guests  are  at  table  ;  but 
the  opposite  method  would  not  be  a  trifle.  A  Louis  the 
Fifteenth  (how  great  a  love  of  children  that  monarch  had 
in  the  days  of  his  innocence  !)  may  always  give  his  play- 
fellows an  order  of  blue  and  white  ribbon,  and  a  medal 
with  the  picture  of  the  pavilion  in  which  they  played ; 
but  the  child  should  not  receive  the  ribbon  of  an  order 
appropriate  to  mature  years  as  a  leading-string  ;  still  less 
should  he,  as  the  monarch  I  have  just  named,  and  his 
predecessor,  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  hold  a  lit  de  justice 
almost  in  his  cradle,  or,  like  other  royal  children,  grasp 
the  staff  of  a  commander  in  the  hands  which  yet  feel  the 
rod.     Why  might  not  as  well  Uttle  ministers  and  presi- 


252  LEVANA. 

dents  surround  the  throne  of  the  royal  child,  and  little 
ambassadors  of  the  highest  rank  accompany  him  in  his 
carriage  ?  This  degradation  of  the  state,  and  of  human 
nature,  works  like  a  destructive  poison  on  the  excitable 
mind  of  the  child.  To  this  cause  may  be  traced  that 
premature,  worn-out,  shallow-cunning,  cool  expression  on 
the  faces  of  so  many  royal  children,  —  an  expression  com- 
pounded of  the  presumption  of  rank  and  youth  and  the 
weakness  of  age. 

Strange  that,  while  writing  this,  your  last  letter  but 
one,  to  which  you  referred  in  your  last  epistle,  has  just 
come  to  hand.  I  now  understand  much.  Your  recent 
Friedanot's  festival  might  really  be  celebrated  as  the 
alliance  between  my  prophecies  and  your  rules ;  or  as 
the  passage  from  what  has  preceded  to  what  is  about  to 
follow,  from  negative  to  positive  education. 

To  proceed,  then :  only  princes  and  women  can  be  ed- 
ucated for  a  determinate  future ;  but  all  other  men  for 
one  which  is  uncertain,  for  the  empire  of  chance  in  their 
aims  and  ranks.  Now  this  is  the  living  spirit  of  your  life 
and  of  that  intrusted  to  you.  The  education  of  a  prince, 
like  his  position  in  the  state,  is  the  only  one  of  the  kind. 
As  your  pupil  can  never  think  too  modestly  of  himself, 
so  can  he  never  think  too  proudly  of  his  dignity  ;  the  re- 
verse of  this  produces  misery  everywhere.  His  ofl&ce,  a 
high  office  at  the  altar  of  the  state,  demands  from  a  falli- 
ble human  form  the  powerful  agency  of  a  god.  He  is  not 
merely  the  first  servant  of  the  state,  but  its  very  heart, 
which  alternately  receives  and  sends  out  its  life-blood ; 
he  is  its  centre  of  gravity,  which  gives  form  to  its  varied 
powers.  Then  let  German  philosophy  show  him  in  his 
high  station  something  different  from  what  the  persiflage 
of  French  philosophy,  and  that  of  worldliness,  exhibits  ; 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       253 

which  endeavors  to  represent  the  throne  as  the  highest 
heritable  place  at  court,  or  as  a  regency  with  a  handsome 
income,  and  the  country  as  a  vast  regiment  at  once  ridic- 
ulous and  useful.  Ah !  verily  the  ancient  error  of  re- 
garding princes  as  the  sent  and  anointed  of  God  (which 
in  fact  every  man  is,  only  in  different  degrees,  —  the  man 
of  genius,  for  instance,  or  every  rational  creature  as  com- 
pared with  the  beasts)  is  much  nobler,  and  more  effica- 
cious for  good,  than  the  modern  error  of  declaring  them 
only  to  be  the  ambassadors  of  selfish  extortions,  that  is,  of 
the  Devil.  But  let  German  earnestness  of  heart  show  the 
young  eagle-prince  his  wdngs,  his  mountains,  and  his  sun 
When  some  warm,  benevolent,  but  too  rash,  genius  of 
the  earth  saw  the  erring  efforts  of  humanity  to  shape  its 
course,  and  how,  broken  up  among  individuals,  it,  like 
the  sea,  only  raised  waves,  but  gave  them  no  direction,  he 
longed  to  give  the  ocean  a  boundary  and  a  rapid  current ; 
then  he  called  up  the  first  great  king  to  collect  the  scat- 
tered forces,  and  guide  them  to  one  end.  Moreover,  this 
genius  would  have  experienced  the  bliss  of  seeing  nations 
linked  together  round  our  globe  like  the  glittering  girdle 
of  Venus,  had  he  not  forgotten  something,  which  another 
and  better  genius,  who  always  permits  more  men  of  gen- 
ius than  spiritual  monarchs  to  appear  at  the  same  time, 
remembered.  I  mean,  if  he  had  taken  care  that  a  con- 
tinued succession  of  good  kings  had  drawn  a  holy  family 
circle  round  the  globe,  and  described  a  ruling  line  of 
beauty,  happiness,  and  honor,  through  all  time.  Oh ! 
what  might  not  poor  humanity  have  become  if,  like  the 
thirty  popes  who,  one  after  another,  continued  building 
the  great  cathedral  at  Rome,  a  contemporaneous  and 
successive  band  of  princes  had,  joining  temple  to  temple, 
so  urged  on  the  great  temple  building  of  humanity  ?    Can 


254  LEVANA. 

humanity  blame  fate  for  opening  to  it,  through  one  indi- 
vidual, the  way  to  the  highest  elevation  or  the  lowest  deg- 
radation, when  one  reckons  the  number  of  princes  with  free 
power  to  be  the  leaders  of  their  age  and  country,  and,  like 
many  flat  glasses  placed  at  once  before  the  sun,  fancies 
them  united  into  one  celestial  luminary  ?  It  is  not  Heav- 
en's fault,  but  man's,  if  they  have  more  easily  converted 
themselves  into  the  war-gods  and  scourges  of  states  than 
into  their  protecting  deities. 

I  would,  therefore,  imitate  you,  and  teach  the  prince 
his  dignity ;  because  only  he  adorns  the  station  who  be- 
lieves himself  to  be  adorned  by  it.  Princes  are  apt  to 
think  meanly  of  princes,  as  mountains  look  little  when 
viewed  from  mountains. 

I  would  indeed,  as  your  fellow-laborer,  prepare  yearly 
—  say,  on  his  birthday  —  a  feast  of  dedication  for  the 
young  heir  apparent,  a  rehearsal  of  his  coronation,  in 
which  the  holiness  of  his  future,  the  inviolableness  of  his 
soul,  should  be  gloriously  and  intimately  presented  to  the 
young  eye,  longing  after  virtue,  under  the  triumphal  arch 
of  great  and  free  nations,  in  sight  of  the  arms  and  banners 
of  his  ancestors  and  of  all  past  ages.  On  such  a  day,  he 
might  also  look  down  into  the  abyss  of  fallen  nations. 
Let  him  learn  by  heart  Plutarch's  histories  of  the  great, 
more  useful  to  him  than  the  more  recent ;  and  let  him 
every  day  pray  out  of  the  meditations  of  Antoninus.  Let 
that  noblfi  order  —  the  name,  Father  of  his  country, 
which  the  great  Camillus  first  bore,  as  founder  of  the 
order,  and  subsequently  Cicero,  the  enemy  of  Catiline,  as 
a  member,  until  it  lost  its  glory  and  sank  down  upon  a 
Caesar,  an  Augustus,  and  such-like  men  —  burn  before 
him,  like  an  illumination  on  the  seven  hills  of  freedom. 
He  must  not  consider  himself  as  a  commander-in-chief  of 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       255 

all  th6  forces,  nor  as  a  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  nor  as 
president  of  the  council,  nor  as  chief  justice,  nor  as  a  rec- 
tor magnificus  of  all  the  sciences,  but  a^  the  protector  of 
his  country,  in  the  highest  sense  of  that  word ;  as  one 
who  has  his  eye  on  every  department  in  the  state,  like 
the  true  judge  of  works  of  art  who  has  taste  for  every 
beauty.  He  should  be  a  Jupiter  who  bears  his  satelhtes 
and  his  courtly  ring,  at  once  round  himself  and  round 
their  common  sun. 

"  According  to  the  usual  requirements  of  learned  men," 
you  write,  "a  prince  who  would  govern  well,  ought  to 
unite  in  his  own  person  the  knowledge  of  all  his  minis- 
ters, so  as  to  be  able  to  judge  of  all  their  affairs.  But  the 
knowledge  of  things,  which  cannot  all  be  embraced  by  one 
individual,  is  less  necessary  and  less  possible  than  the 
knowledge  of  men  by  whom  they  must  be  proposed  and 
executed.  Consequently,  if  the  prince  have  only  charac- 
ter, and  if  that  have  matured  steadily  and  purely  under 
the  eye  of  his  teacher,  he  will  be  able  both  to  penetrate 
into  matters  and  to  use  vigorous  measures."  You  might 
have  copied  this  out  of  my  own  soul.  If  men  have  been 
easily  able  to  blind  us,  yet,  in  a  hundred  cases,  some 
weakness  in  our  heart,  rather  than  any  weakness  in  our 
eyes,  has  been  first  to  blame.  Among  princes  a  pure  and 
firm  character  is  especially  needed  for  seeing  and  acting ; 
for  on  the  throne  the  nerve  of  sight  is  easily  transformed 
into  the  motive-nerve  of  the  muscles.  Mere  goodness 
without  character  will,  or  may,  be  governed  and  used  by 
all  the  enemies  of  a  people ;  whereas  character  without 
goodness  can  only  be  acted  on  by  one  enemy  of  the  peo- 
ple, —  itself. 

The  whole  present  time  is  a  regicide  of  character, 
especially  of  all   healthiness  of  character;   for  over  it 


256  LEVANA. 

poisonous  victims  are  passed  to  bodies  and  souls,  and  for 
the  sacrifice  of  a  god  a  man  is  offered  up.  Hence  so 
many  marrowless  but  sceptre-griping  arms ;  hence  the  life 
of  so  many  princes  is  but  a  passive  "  council  of  five  hun- 
dred " ;  and  even  good  may  only  be  done  and  published 
by  permission  of  the  subjects. 

So  much  the  better,  dear  Adelhard,  that  you  endeavor 
to  give  your  pupil  a  strong  body ;  only  watch  over  him 
till  he  has  passed  through  the  usual  powder-mines  of  royal 
youth,  —  the  capitals,  for  instance,  of  the  grand  tour,  a 
few  middle-aged  women,  and  his  majority. 

From  your  letter  I  can  perceive  the  truth  of  the  sup- 
position I  cherish,  that  you  do  not  recommend  or  cultivate 
in  Friedanot  any  active  love  of  the  arts  of  painting,  music, 
or  architecture,  lest,  as  you  say,  "  he  should  convert  gov- 
ernment into  a  subservient  art."  Nero,  truly,  had  a  genius 
for  ait,  —  as  Frederick  the  Great  had  a  genius  for  govern- 
ment, —  his  whole  life,  from  the  time  of  his  subjection  to 
the  laws  of  art,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  cruelties,  and 
down  to  his  last  sigh,  testifies  as  much  feeling  for  art  as 
absence  of  feeling  for  humanity.  If,  for  instance,  a  prince 
devotes  himself,  not  to  adduce  more  ancient,  still  less 
modern  examples,  —  like  the  Macedonian  king  Europus, 
to  making  candles  (in  a  metaphorical  sense,  that  would  be 
good)  ;  or,  like  the  Parthian  kings,  to  sharpening  swords, 
(that  were  good  in  a  different  way) ;  or,  like  Attains 
Philomator,  to  the  cultivation  of  poisonous  plants  (this 
only  admits  of  no  good  metaphorical  sense),  the  whole 
court,  suppose  that  of  Attains,  would  be  converted  into  a 
garden,  and  every  one  would  seize  the  royal  gardener  by 
his  weak  side,  —  his  botanical  mania.  All  courtiers  wish 
their  king  to  love  something  besides  government  and  his 
country.     Every  great  lord,  according  to  the  law,  must 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       257 

practise  some  handicraft ;  but  only  in  the  same  way  that 
every  Mussulman,  and  every  Rabbin  among  the  Jews, 
must  understand  some  art,  and  not,  as  Montesquieu  and 
some  others  suppose,  in  order  that  he  may  not  torture 
people  for  pastime. 

Am  I  not,  then,  agreed  in  opinion  with  you,  when  I  say 
that  princes  need  no  subordinate  pursuit,  any  more  than 
ancient  statues  needed  the  adornment  of  colors  ?  How 
much  useless  knowledge  about  history,  languages,  and  art 
might  and  ought  to  be  spared  them ! 

A  general  love  of  science,  like  an  alternation  between 
two  heights,  enriches  and  refreshes  royalty,  as  was  exem- 
plified in  Frederick  the  Great.  There  is  a  wider  pros- 
pect from  Parnassus  than  from  the  throne.  I  wish  that 
even  there,  as  in  the  high  schools,  reading  and  learning 
were  called  government.  And  what  greater  ground  for 
alarm  would  there  be,  if  the  king  were  president  of  the 
great  academy  of  all  the  sciences,  than  that  favorites  and 
courtiers  would  become  members  of  it,  and  understand  a 
great  deal  ?  And  is  it  not  very  much  better  that  he,  like 
Louis  XIV.,  should  expend  sixty-six  thousand  three  hun- 
dred livres  in  pensions  to  learned  men,  than  that,  like  the 
same  king,  he  should  waste  thirty-three  millions  of  livres 
in  the  mere  lead  of  the  palace  at  Versailles,  and  its  water- 
works? Openly  tell  your  Friedanot  that,  in  every  coun- 
try, where  the  press  is  free  as  well  as  where  it  is  submit- 
ted to  censorship,  there  is  no  one  to  whom  so  many  books 
are  forbidden  as  to  the  king  himself;  the  censors  will 
scarcely  allow  him  a  newspaper.  Although  the  king  need 
not  know  so  much  of  law  as  his  lord  chancellor,  nor  so 
much  political  economy  as  his  prime  minister,  he  yet 
must  know  as  much  or  more  of  the  art  of  war  than  his 
first  general.     This  union  of  sceptre  and  sword  is  unmis- 

Q 


258  LEVANA. 

takable.  The  royal  infant  even  is  consecrated  to  no  other 
inaugural  post  of  honor  than  that  of  war.  A  helmeted 
preface  {jprcefatio  galeata)  precedes  his  life  ;  he  passes 
his  mornings  in  the  arsenal.  No  prince  scruples  to  serve 
in  war  among  the  soldiers  of  a  greater  foreign  prince  than 
himself,  and  to  fight  and  bleed  for  him  as  unconditionally 
as  his  meanest  subject ;  but  he  would  consider  it  beneath 
his  dignity  to  be  the  same  monarch's  prime  minister,  presi- 
dent of  his  council,  or  even  general-in-chief  of  his  forces. 

Whence  arises,  and  why  is  there,  this  equality  of  royal 
and  warlike  honor  in  this  and  other  points,  as  if  the  prince 
were  only  the  first  servant  of  the  state  by  being  its  fore- 
most fighter? 

Voltaire's  saying,  "  The  first  king  was  a  successful  sol- 
dier," —  and  the  corollary  to  be  drawn  thence,  that  "  A 
successful  king  is  the  first  soldier,"  —  does  not  sufficiently 
explain  his  position  in  a  state,  by  his  position  before  there 
was  a  state.  Moreover,  war  is  now  only  the  exception, 
and  peace  the  rule ;  and  however  much  the  country  be 
turned  into  an  arsenal,  and  the  throne  into  a  fortress,  yet 
preparations  for  peace  must  be  carried  on  as  long  and  as 
industriously  as  preparations  for  war.  But  the  prepon- 
derance of  the  arts  of  war  over  those  of  peace,  in  all  per- 
sons destined  for  the  throne,  may  be  explained  and  justified 
by  two  totally  different  reasons  and  sentiments.  In  the 
first  instance,  the  mutual  defence  of  individuals  formed 
the  state ;  and  afterwards,  as  each  nation  experienced  the 
necessity  of  defending  itself  against  the  aggressions  of 
other  nations,  the  king  seemed  to  perform  his  duty  to  the 
state  best  by  watching  over  its  frontiers,  not  by  becoming 
chief  architect,  food-provider,  farmer,  coiner,  and  regulator 
of  its  domestic  affairs  ;  he  had  rather  to  act  externally  by 
the  law  of  the  stronger,  than  internally  by  the  power  of 
the  affections. 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       259 

One  evil  was  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  state  of 
things,  that  nations,  —  which,  in  the  last  resort,  only  con- 
sist of  individuals,  —  owing  to  this  love  of  war  in  their 
governors,  fell  into  that  very  condition  out  of  which  the 
individuals  had  endeavored  to  extricate  themselves  by 
combining  to  form  a  state.  So  little  yet  does  man  regard 
the  interests  of  man.  Confined  to  his  clod. of  earth,  like 
the  insect  to  its  leaf,  he  does  not  perceive  that  every  war 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  is,  in  fact,  a  civil  war ;  and  a 
dark  sea,  in  a  spiritual  sense  as  truly  as  in  physical  fact, 
gives,  by  its  conceahng  cloak,  the  appearance  of  separate 
enchanting  islands  to  the  girdle  of  mountains  which  sur- 
rounds the  world. 

But  the  monarch  has  a  yet  weightier  ground  for  his 
love  of  war ;  the  sentiment  that  all  dignity  arises  from 
moral  worth,  and  that  the  chief  basis  of  manly  dignity 
consists  only  in  courage  or  honor.  The  brave  prince 
covers  his  head  and  his  inner  man  with  a  crown  different 
from  that  which  rests  on  his  outward  form.  Courage  or 
honor  is  expected  in  every  man,  but  not  talent.  The 
prince,  hke  the  first  nobleman  in  the  highest  rank  of 
nobility,  must  oppose  his  enemy  with  the  courageous 
point  of  honor,  as  though  it  were  a  bright  focus  of 
burning  rays.  Courage  is  a  virtue  of  no  doubtful  seem- 
ing ;  there  can  be  no  contradiction,  no  diversity  of 
opinion,  about  it.  A  prince  who  exposes  his  body, 
carefully  protected  and  consecrated  by  the  state,  as 
though  it  were  a  common  one,  to  the  rank-scorning  bul- 
let, against  which,  in  a  foreign  land,  his  crown  is  no  hel- 
met, but  only  a  mark,  gathers  laurels  with  his  own  hand 
in  the  eyes  of  thousands.  But  the  honor  of  peaceful 
talents  is  not  so  uncontestedly  ascribed  to  him,  because 
many  a  prince  has  been  a  sun  which  the  minister  must 
surround  with  his  clouds  ere  it  emitted  beams. 


26o  LEVANA. 

I  grant  that  war  is  accompanied  with  certain  by-charms. 
It  is  well  minutely  to  dissect  them  before  him  to  whom 
you  would  fain  render  them  hateful.  A  king  likes  to 
govern,  especially  when  he  can  do  so  easily  and  abso- 
lutely ;  on  the  drum  he  finds  a  movable  throne  ;  and  the 
art  of  war  is  surrounded  with  a  poetical  halo ;  it  is  more 
definite  and  more  obvious  than  the  art  of  government,  and 
the  movements  of  the  general's  baton  are  more  clearly 
marked  by  the  eyes  of  men  than  are  those  of  the  sceptre. 

The  powder-mill  of  war  moves  on  the  wheels  of  fortune. 
As  the  southern  promontory  of  Africa,  so  here  the  head- 
land of  storms,  is  called  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  And  to 
what  lottery  could  a  ruler  more  cheerfully  subscribe  than 
to  that  of  war,  —  especially  because  he  only  ventures 
foreign  possessions,  and  wins  no  part  of  his  home  inher- 
itance, because  he  wins  the  whole  ?  Further,  nothing 
irritates  a  youth  so  much  as  to  be  obhged  to  mount  the 
throne  when  of  mature  age,  and  then  find  his  whole  life, 
even  down  to  the  horizon,  marked  out  and  enclosed.  The 
royal  youth  longs,  in  the  first  place,  to  do  something  in 
life  ;  and,  in  the  second,  to  render  himself  immortal  by  it. 
Now,  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  first  wish,  what  means 
lie  so  near  him,  or  seem  so  glorious  to  his  fancy,  as  war, 
which  opens  to  him  a  career  in  foreign  countries?  or 
what  can  gratify  the  second  desire  more  easily  than  the 
field  of  battle,  which  matures  in  one  day  the  precious 
flower  of  immortality,  which  would  require  a  whole  life 
to  blossom  on  the  throne  ?  The  noble  Henry  IV.  of 
France  said,  "  I  would  rather  gird  on  my  armor  than 
make  laws."  It  is  on  the  same  principle  that  novices  in 
poetry,  and  novices  on  the  dramatic  stage,  make  their  first 
essays  in  the  horrible,  the  glory  arising  from  which  is 
easily  and  quickly  gained. 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       261 

I  think  you  say  in  one  of  your  letters  that  the  satiety 
princes  experience  of  the  praise  and  emulation  of  infe- 
riors, is  apt  to  engender  a  warlike  longing  for  a  contest 
with  kings  and  enemies  before  the  eyes  of  all  Europe. 
Very  true  !  The  poisonous  air  of  courts  readily  commu- 
nicates that  yawning  fever  of  which  so  many  died  in 
Italy  during  the  seventh  century.  Men  seek  to  clear  the 
air  with  gunpowder. 

But  how  can  a  young  prince  ever  behold  the  dark  side 
of  the  glittering  form  of  war,  that  hellish  stream  which 
surrounds  the  living  earth  and  is  peopled  with  the  dead  ? 
For  it  is  in  truth  necessary,  especially  for  Germany, 
which  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  Hyde  Park  and 
Bois  de  Boulogne  to  which  Europe  resorts  when  it  re- 
solves to  fight.  Will  you  let  him  hear  the  chorus  of  all 
wise  men  and  poets  cursing  war,  the  last  ghost  and  sav- 
age army  of  barbarism .''  Will  you,  before  war,  preach 
such  a  sermon  as  this  on  peace  to  the  king  who  is  about 
to  hurl  his  torch-like  missive  to  kindle  the  fire  of  war  ? 
"  Consider  well :  one  step  beyond  your  frontiers  changes 
the  whole  face  of  two  empires ;  thine  own  is  consumed 
behind  thee,  thine  enemy's  before  thee.  That  moment 
an  earthquake  takes  possession  of  both,  and  labors  to  the 
destruction  of  both ;  all  ancient  law-courts,  all  judgment- 
seats,  are  overturned ;  heights  and  depths  are  confounded 
together.  It  is  a  last  day,  full  of  rising  sinnere  and  fall- 
ing stars ;  it  is  the  tribunal  at  which  the  Devil  judges  the 
world,  where  bodies  condemn  spirits,  physical  force  the 
power  of  love.  Consider  it,  O  prince !  Every  soldier  in 
this  empire  of  lawlessness  becomes  thy  crowned  brother 
in  a  foreign  land,  bearing  the  sword  of  Justice  without 
her  balance,  and  governing  more  despotically  than  thy- 
self.    Every  meanest  drudge  in  the  enemy's  ranks  is  thy 


262  LEVANA. 

king  and  judge,  carrying  in  his  hand  an  axe  and  a  halter 
for  thee.  The  arbitrary  powers  of  force  and  chance  only 
sit  upon  the  double  throne  of  conscience  and  of  knowl- 
edge. Two  nations  are  converted,  half  into  slave-dealers, 
half  into  slaves,  mingled  without  order  among  one  an- 
other. In  the  eyes  of  higher  beings,  the  human  race  has 
become  an  assemblage  of  lawless,  conscienceless,  stone- 
blind  beasts  and  machines,  which  robs,  devours,  strikes, 
bleeds,  and  dies.  Even  granting  that  justice  is  on  thy 
side,  yet  by  the  first  line  of  a  manifesto,  as  by  an  earth- 
quake, thou  lettest  loose  the  chained  devils  of  injustice  out 
of  their  prison-house !  The  dread  despotism  thus  en- 
throned is  so  great  that  little  misdeeds  never  reach  thy 
ears,  and  great  crimes  only  by  their  frequent  repetition. 
For  the  permission  to  slay  and  take  possession,  includes 
in  itself  all  lesser  crimes.  Even  the  unarmed  citizen's 
voice  is  heard  amidst  the  screams  and  discord ;  exchang- 
ing all  his  plans  of  life  for  a  few  moments'  indulgence 
and  lawless  freedom,  treated  by  the  allied  soldiers  as 
partly,  and  by  their  opponents  as  altogether,  an  enemy. 
Think  of  all  this,  O  prince,  ere  thou  hidest  thy  light  amid 
the  locust-clouds  of  war,  and  ere  thou  makest  the  warriors 
of  a  stranger  the  judges  and  executioners  in  thy  hitherto 
justly  governed  land,  or  givest  thine  own  soldiers  such 
power  in  the  conquered  country !  " 

At  all  events,  much  might  be  done.  We  should  en- 
deavor to  verify  the  expressions  of  a  history  or  a  news- 
paper, so  short  and  so  lightly  passed  over,  "  Battle-field, 
distress  of  the  besieged,  a  hundred  wagons  of  wounded"; 
which  by  their  perpetual  repetition  have  passed  from 
living  figures  to  paintings,  and  lastly,  to  mere  sounds; 
we  should  picture  them  in  all  their  terrible  details,  in  the 
Buffering  which  otie  wagon  bears  and  fearfully  increases, 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       263 

in  the  one  agonizing  day  of  a  single  fainting  and  dying 
soldier.  Not  only  history,  in  which  all  ages  and  nations 
bleed,  but  our  common  newspapers  and  way  of  speaking, 
and  the  scientific  appearance  of  warlike  preparations  for 
surgical  assistance,  change  wounds  into  words,  and  the 
monstrous  amount  of  suffering  into  letters.  Hence,  the 
same  minister  who  tranquilly  observes  the  hygrometer  of 
war's  bloody  rain,  and  cheerfully  orders  a  bath  of  blood 
for  two  nations,  is  overcome  by  the  wounds  and  tears  of 
a  stage-play,  merely  because  the  poet's  art  transforms  the 
words  back  to  their  living  meaning.  A  prince  whose 
tendencies  you  feared  might  be  conducted  over  a  bloody 
battle-field  with  the  same  warning  advantage  as  accrues 
to  children  of  a  difierent  class  who  are  led  through  an 
hospital.  But  God  grant  that  humanity  may  ever  fail  to 
offer  such  schools  and  such  remedies ! 

Properly,  —  and  this  might  be  instructively  said  to  a 
prince,  —  the  people  only  should  decide  upon  war  with 
another  nation,  that  is,  upon  a  return  to  the  first  state  of 
nature ;  especially  as  they  only  gather  its  bitter,  not  its 
sweet  fruits;  and  should  determine  whether  they  are 
willing  to  give  themselves  up  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  storms 
and  tempests  of  war.  It  is  a  crying  sin  against  Heaven, 
that  one  king,  for  an  offensive  expression  from  another 
king,  should  involve  two  nations  in  mortal  strife.  In 
reading  modern  history,  one  shudders  to  see  how  the 
merest  trifles  have  kindled  the  fires  of  war ;  how  a 
woman's  pin,  or  an  ambassador's  finger,  has  been  the 
conductor  of  a  thunder-storm,  ravaging  whole  countries. 
The  wars  of  modern  times  ought  certainly  to  strike  sol- 
diers only,  not  the  ranks  of  unarmed  citizens.  When 
the  more  active  part  of  the  latter  disturb  the  operations 
of  the  former,  as  in  shooting  from  houses,  they  at  once 


264  LEVANA. 

appeal  to  the  right  of  distinction,  and  proceed  to  attack 
and  punish  them ;  but  why  should  the  unarmed  classes, 
without  the  advantages,  yet  participate  in  all  the  suf- 
ferings, plunder,  imprisonment,  &c.,  of  those  who  are 
armed  ?  One  or  all  of  these  three  remedies  must  be  ap- 
plied to  this  terrible  coil,  in  order  that  the  future  may  atone 
for  the  past :  either  that  naval  conflicts  may  be  carried 
on  without  letters  of  marque,  and  that  in  land  fights  the 
soldiers  may  be  placed  in  some  desert,  as  the  scene  of 
their  many-voiced  and  many-handed  duel ;  or  that,  as  in 
republics  which  have  fallen  to  destruction  or  risen  to  an 
unearthly  life,  every  citizen  should  be  a  soldier,  and  con- 
sequently every  soldier  a  citizen;  or,  finally,  that  the 
eternal  banner  of  peace  should  hang  down  from  heaven, 
and  flutter  in  the  pure  ether  above  the  earth. 

I  have  an  idea  that  either  you,  or  one  of  your  friends, 
once  declared  that  history  —  the  long  war-report  and 
bulletin  of  humanity  —  imparted  the  infection  of  war  to 
young  princes.  But  I  would  almost  trust  to  it  as  the 
remedy  for  the  love  of  war.  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden 
could  scarcely  have  imbibed  his  passion  for  glory  and 
conquest  from  the  mere  perusal  of  Curtius's  Life  of  Alex- 
ander, since  Alexander  had  the  same  passion  without 
having  read  his  biography;  and  Csesar,  also,  without 
knowing  more  of  Curtius  than  his  hero.  In  history  may 
be  found  the  test  of  the  anchors  and  swords  of  sea  and 
land  fights.  It  alone  shows  to  the  monarch,  thirsting  for 
glory,  how  little  mere  bravery  appertains  to  glory  ;  for  a 
cowardly  nation  is  more  rare  upon  the  earth  than  a  brave 
man.  What  nation,  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  is  not 
brave  ?  At  present,  for  instance,  all  Europe  is  so ;  Rus- 
sians, Danes,  Swedes,  Austrians,  English,  Hessians, 
French,  Bavarians,  and  Prussians,  all  are  brave.     The 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       265.. 

lower  Rome's  free  spirit  sank,  the  more  wildly  and  vehe- 
mently rose  the  merely  brave  spirit;  Catiline,  Csesar, 
Augustus,  had  conquerors  for  their  servants.  The  fre-  . 
quent  arming  of  the  ancient  slaves,  as  of  the  modern 
beggars,  testifies  against  the  value  of  the  common  bravery 
of  fists  and  wounds.  Iphicrates,  the  Athenian,  said  that 
the  best  soldiers  were  those  who  loved  plunder  and  vio- 
lence ;  and  General  Fischer  has  added  to  these,  vaga- 
bonds. Cannot  a  monarch  wish  to  shine  upon  posterity 
with  something  else  than  the  fair  tiger-spots  of  a  con- 
queror, in  which  the  Timurs,  Attilas,  Dessalines,  and 
other  scourges  of  God,  or  knouts  of  the  Devil,  outdo  him? 
How  coldly  does  one  walk  in  history  over  the  countless 
battle-fields  which  fill  the  earth  with  beds  of  death! 
And  with  what  curses  does  one  hasten  past  the  crown 
which,  like  the  ajutage^  or  leaden  head  of  a  pipe,  raised 
by  the  upward  gushing  of  a  fountain,  is  only  kept  up  by 
starting  streams  of  blood !  But  where  an  eternal  glory 
hovers  round  some  heroes,  as  those  of  Marathon's  plain 
and  Thermopylae's  pass,  there  other  spirits  fought  and 
fell,  —  heavenly  visions  of  the  courage  of  freedom.  And 
whatever  individual  stands  greatly  forth  in  history  and 
fills  its  spaces,  does  it  not  from  any  pyramid  of  skulls 
erected  on  battle-fields ;  but  a  great  soul  hovers  there, 
like  the  form  of  an  unearthly  world  glorified  in  the  night,' 
and  touches  the  stars  and  the  earth. 

For  there  is  a  nobler  courage,  which  once,  though  not 
long,  Sparta,  Athens,  and  Bome  possessed,  —  the  courage 
of  peace  and  of  freedom,  the  bravery  which  showed  itself 
at  home.  Many  a  nation,  a  cowardly  slave  in  its  own 
country,  but  a  bold  hero  out  of  it,  resembles  the  falcon 
(though  become  tame,  unlike  it,  rather  by  sleeping  than 
by  sleeplessness),  which  is  carried  hooded  on  the  wrist' of 
12 


266  LEVANA. 

the  falconer,  until  left  to  its  ancient  freedom,  a  momenta- 
ry wooer  of  the  air,  it  boldly  and  bravely  vanquishes  some 
new  bird,  and  then  returns  with  it  to  the  slavish  earth. 
But  the  truly,  because  freely,  brave  people  carries  on  its 
war  of  freedom  at  home,  against  every  hand  which  would 
stay  its  flight  or  blind  its  eye  ;  this,  indeed,  is  the  longest 
and  bravest  war,  and  the  only  one  which  admits  no  truce. 
Just  so  brave,  and  in  a  higher  sense,  may  a  monarch  be. 
Let  the  great  ideal  of  art,  to  unite  dignity  with  repose,  be 
the  ideal  of  the  throne.  To  extinguish  the  flames  of  war 
is  more  worthy  of  a  king,  as  it  is  more  difficult,  than  to 
kindle  them.  If  this  bravery  of  peace  be  already  secured, 
whereby  alone  a  monarch  can  distinguish  himself  in  his- 
tory, —  then  that  of  war,  if  necessary,  becomes  easy,  and 
every  wound  glorious.  Hence  the  great  men  of  antiqui- 
ty are  rather  distinguished  by  their  character  than  by 
their  deeds,  rather  by  the  trophies  of  peace  than  those  of 
war ;  the  plough-heroes  of  battle-fields  by  an  intensity  of 
love,  which,  as  in  Phocion,  sowed  the  steep  cliffs  which 
bound  the  mighty  ocean  with  balmy  spice-plants ;  which 
in  Cato  the  younger  loved  and  bewailed  his  brother  with 
all  a  woman's  tenderness,  and  caused  Epaminondas  to  re- 
member the  duties  of  a  host  even  on  the  scaffold  ;  which 
made  Brutus  a  tender  husband,  Alexander  a  trustful 
friend,  and  Gustavus  a  Christian. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  young  prince  should  view  the 
future  which  he  helps  to  form  from  this  side  and  through 
this  opening  in  history ;  in  this  manner  he  must  learn  to 
subject  the  inferior  to  the  nobler  kind  of  courage.  Cer- 
tainly a  king  who  avoided  war  from  cowardice  would  be 
more  dangerous  —  especially  in  the  present  position  of 
Grermany  —  than  one  who  sought  it  from  foolhardiness ; 
and,  moreover,  he  would  be  less  easily  cured.     The  seep- 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       267 

tre  resembles  Saturn's  scythe,  which  is  at  once  the  emblem 
of  harvest-time  and  of  death. 

The  thing  that  grieves  me,  when  I  consider  the  excel- 
lence of  the  education  you,  dear  Adelhard,  impart,  is  that 
it  will  be  of  little  or  no  use,  unless  you  are  ennobled,  or 
unless  the  prince  might  remain  at  home.  I  mean  this  : 
I  cannot  but  lament  that  he  must  grasp  the  pilgrim's  staff 
before  the  sceptre,  and  must  pass  through  the  three  king- 
doms of  nature,  or  three  courts  of  the  grand  tour,  Italy, 
England,  and  France,  in  order  to  return  different  from 
what  he  started  !  Enough  cannot  be  said  in  favor  of 
travel,  but  not  of  early  travel.  Let  the  man,  not  the  boy, 
travel ;  let  his  travelling-cap  be  the  crown.  If  he  go  un- 
crowned, sent  as  a  travelling  fortune  to  the  fair  of  Paris, 
we  know  —  by  the  example  of  his  noble  companions  — 
what,  not  to  speak  of  ruined  health,  he  will  bring  back ; 
namely,  a  mind  full  of  contempt  for  his  little  inland  pat- 
rimony, full  of  plans  for  miniature  imitations,  and  of 
acquired  notions  whose  importation  the  Prussian  Lycur- 
gus  and  the  Spartan  Frederick  the  Second  prevented,  the 
one  into  the  nobility,  the  other  into  the  people,  by  forbid- 
ding travelling.  If  we  wish,  by  imitation,  to  give  the 
dominion  over  our  domestic  affairs  to  foreign  countries, 
which  by  treaties  of  peace  —  those  of  Westphalia  and 
Lun^ville,  for  instance  —  have  already  quite  sufficiently 
ruled  and  changed  the  constitution  of  the  Germanic  em- 
pire, I  really  think  we  burden  ourselves  with  too  great  a 
weight  of  gratitude,  especially  when  we  consider  the  rare- 
ness of  the  opportunities  for  requital.  If  foreign  travel 
is  indispensable  to  mental  growth,  why  do  we  see  so  few 
dauphins,  so  few  princes  of  Wales,  of  Austria,  or  of  Bra- 
zil, in  our  hotels  ?  If  the  coat  of  worldly  varnish  given 
by  strangers  cannot  be  done  without,  fortunately  his  court 


268  LEVANA. 

will  be  so  frequently  visited  by  so  many  who  will  gladly 
linger  there  a  long  time,  that  he  may  easily  remain  at 
home.  For  the  same  reason,  among  the  artisans  of  Ber- 
lin, Konigsberg,  and  other  large  towns,  the  sons  of  master- 
workmen  are  not  required  to  travel  like  other  journey- 
men. 

But  there  is  one  country  which  an  heir  apparent  may 
minutely  survey  in  his  travels,  —  it  is  his  own ;  and  the 
deeper  he  penetrates  into  the  lower  classes,  the  more  pro- 
ductive of  benefit  will  his  journey  be.  Like  an  jEneas 
or  a  Dante,  he  will  return  a  wiser  man  out  of  this  lower 
world  into  the  upper  regions  of  the  throne.  A  prince 
cannot  picture  to  himself  hunger  as  anything  other  than 
a  rare  gift  of  God  and  of  the  stomach  ;  or  labor,  than  as 
a  hawking-match  to  procure  it ;  or  the  people,  which  ex- 
periences enough  of  both,  as  anything  different  from  the 
pampered  crowd  of  his  court  servants.  If  in  Corea  the 
people  must  shut  their  doors  and  windows  when  the  king 
is  passing  by,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  will  also  close  his 
from  the  eyes  of  his  people  :  and  so  one  invisibility  pro- 
duces the  other. 

If  he  be  crowned  and  married,  and  about  as  old,  or 
even  older,  than  Joseph  II.,  or  Peter  the  Great,  or  popes 
on  their  travels,  or  the  ancient  Romans  whose  proconsul- 
ships  were  also  journeys,  he  will  receive  greater  advan- 
tage from  his  travels  than  he  would  even  as  his  own 
ambassador ;  for  he  will  see  everything  more  accurately, 
more  quickly,  and  be  less  taxed  for  doing  so.  Boling- 
broke  tells  us,  that  if  at  forty  we  read  again  some  of  our 
childhood's  books  we  shall  find  everything  new  :  even  so, 
if  at  the  same  age  we  revisit  the  land  of  our  youth,  we 
shall  fini  a  new  world,  previously  overlooked.  A  young 
prince,  perhaps,  brings  home  with  him  out  of  some  for- 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF   A    PRINCE.       269 

eign  country  a  faded  garland,  as  a  memento  of  rare 
flowers  of  happiness  ;  a  prince  of  mature  age  brings  also 
the  seeds  of  those  flowers.  When  the  warm-hearted, 
manly,  true  German  Duke  of  Meiningen  travelled,  the 
year  before  his  death,  to  one  of  the  southern  cities  of  Ger- 
many, he  did  not  visit  courts,  balls,  princes,  and  women  ; 
but  machines,  manufactories,  soup-kitchens,  mines,  artists 
and  their  works,  financiers  and  their  tables,  —  ah !  why 
was  he  doomed  so  shortly  afterwards  to  make  the  longest 
journey  to  the  most  distant  country  ?  A  noble  prince 
who  loves  his  people  can  never  tread  that  path  too  late. 
But  if  your  Friedanot  must  go  on  his  travels  before  he 
ascends  the  throne,  I  would  wish  you  to  be  ennobled  and 
to  accompany  him.  Every  royal  tutor  should  receive 
nobility  from  his  connection  with  a  prince,  just  as  iron  be- 
comes magnetic  by  contact  with  a  magnet,  in  order  that 
he  may  afterwards  be  employed  at  the  dinner  or  card 
table,  when,  otherwise,  his  place  must  be  occupied  by 
some  one  whose  rank  admits  him  to  the  royal  table. 
How  happy  is  a  princess  whose  Orbilia  and  La  plus 
Bonne  is,  from  the  commencement,  of  such  high  rank  that 
she  may  ever  remain  near  her  !  "  Turba  medicorum  per- 
didit  Caesarem  "  :  *  this  epitaph  on  Adrian  is  also  true  of 
the  multitude  of  "  soul  curers." 

Many  of  your  regulations  for  princes  may  be  readily 
guessed,  because  they  must  also  have  a  place  in  the  edu- 
cation of  every  child  ;  only  that  qualities  which  the  latter 
must  use  as  small  coin  in  every-day  life  are  required 
from  princes  as  gold  for  the  mint,  and  for  the  adornment 
of  the  "palace.  In  the  first  place  I  rank  keeping  his  word. 
Princes  rarely  break  their  word,  except  to  whole  coun- 
tries, —  their  own,  and  foreign  lands.  The  word  given  to 
*  "  The  multitude  of  doctors  killed  Caesar." 


270  LEVANA. 

one  man,  themselves  perhaps  excepted,  they  always  keep. 
Chamfort  remarks,  that,  up  to  the  ministry  of  the  Cardi- 
nal de  Lomenie,  fifty-six  public  breaches  of  faith  were 
reckoned  in  Henry  IV.  These  may  readily  be  explained 
by  the  rarefying  power  of  space,  which,  far  more  than 
time,  immediately  decomposes  the  strongest  powers ;  as, 
for  instance,  electricity,  attraction,  philanthropy,  freedom, 
and  a  promise.  Distance,  for  instance,  inconceivably 
diminishes  British  freedom,  even  in  Ireland,  as  it  formerly 
did  in  North  America ;  but  at  sea,  and  in  the  colonies,  it 
is,  by  distance,  rarefied  to  such  a  degree,  that  only  the 
quick  eye  of  a  captain  or  a  nabob  can  distinguish  it  from 
absolute  slavery.  In  the  same  way  a  promise  is  so  weak- 
ened by  distance,  that  even  a  peace  concluded  a  century 
or  so  before,  by  the  naval  powers  of  Europe,  could  not 
avert  war  from  India.  Physics,  as  already  said,  show 
the  cause  of  this  phenomenon.  This  fact,  perhaps,  ren- 
ders a  lecture-room  and  teacher  for  speaking  truth  more 
necessary  to  an  heir  apparent.  Indeed,  this  speech  is 
quite  as  important  as  the  Lusatian  or  Italian,  which,  ac- 
cording to  a  golden  bull,  every  future  elector,  king  of 
Bohemia,  and  pfalz-graf  of  the  Rhine,  had  to  learn  in  his 
seventh  year  ;  or  even  as  the  French,  though  no  bull  has 
declared  that  essential. 

Royal  truthfulness  towards  his  own  and  other  nations 
is  not  only,  as  others  have  said,  a  monarch's  highest  pol- 
icy, but  also,  and  for  that  very  reason,  the  most  difficult. 
Upright  minds  are  like  straight  roads,  which  seem  to  the 
eye  scarce  half  so  long  as  those  which  wind  artfully  about; 
but  their  true  length  is  found  by  a  nearer  examination. 
Only  a  prince  who  cherishes  noble  and  well-considered 
desires  will  choose  to  reveal  them ;  as  it  is  only  cut  dia- 
monds of  the  purest  water  which  can  be  set  so  that  the 
light  may  shine  through. 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       271 

Under  all  treaties  of  war  and  peace  there  lies  a  higher 
bond  of  union  than  power, — because  without  it  they  could 
not  even  be  formed,  —  it  is  reliance  on  a  given  word,  on 
the  power  of  character,  not  on  land  and  sea  forces.  But 
in  history,  which  else  accurately  lays  before  us  from 
month  to  month  the  cost  of  the  new  triumphal-arches 
for  fresh  victors,  there  is  nothing  more  rare  than  an  hon- 
orable niche  devoted  to  a  king  who  speaks  truly  for  the 
present,  and  prophesies  truly  for  the  future.  Royal  truth- 
fulness presupposes  force  of  character,  resolute  courage, 
and  just  strength  of  will.  Finally,  where  this  oak  forest 
stands  and  grows  around  a  throne,  there  is  the  ancient 
German  sanctuary ;  the  throne  within  its  shadow  works 
miracles,  and  the  people  round  its  base  pray  to  Heaven  for 
protection.  You  and  I  hear  such  a  forest  rustling  so  near 
our  study  that  we  could  count  its  leaves. 

Baikeuth,  January,  1806. 

I  have  again  unpacked  my  goods,  because  peace  con- 
tinues;  so  that  our  meeting,  as  well  as  the  review  and 
ratification  of  my  predictions,  must  be  postponed  to  a 
more  favorable  season.  In  conclusion,  and  in  jest,  I  ap- 
pend a  few  aphorisms  on  education,  suitable  for  insertion 
in  albums ;  which  I  prepare  from  time  to  time  for  the 
various  royal  and  noble  tutors  who  visit  my  study,  so  as 
to  have  a  few  useful  impromptu  thoughts  ready  to  be 
written  down  when  they  hand  me  their  albums.  The 
following  thoughts  have  not  yet  been  inserted  in  such 
books : — 

To  form  a  brave  man,  educate  boldly  !  Brave  painters 
alone,  says  Lavater,  can  hit  a  brave  face. 


272  LEVANA. 

Not  without  reason  do  the  rarest  flowers  borrow  their 
Dames  from  princes.  Power  cannot  have  too  gentle  an 
expression.  The  look  of  a  king  is  itself  a  deed.  Conse- 
quently a  king  can  choose  whether  he  will  all  day  kill  or 
make  alive.  The  sceptre  should  not  be  a  rod  of  authority; 
but,  like  a  magnetic  needle,  should  assume  the  form  of  a 
lily.  It  is  easier,  like  the  tragic  Crebillon,  to  obtain  the 
surname  of  the  terrible,  than,  like  Virgil,  to  merit  the 
epithet  of  the  maidenly.  A  flute  lay  side  by  side  with 
Frederick  the  Great's  baton  of  command.  Let  every 
prince  regard  this  as  an  allegory. 

He  who  mistrusts  humanity  is  quite  as  often  deceived 
as  he  who  trusts  men.  The  wicked  and  despotic  favorite 
always  advises  a  king  to  rule  himself,  not  to  let  others 
govern  for  him  ;  to  see  and  hear  for  himself  (at  least  to 
see  and  hear  the  favorite),  and  not  to  be  a  mere  repeater 
on  which  an  external  hammer  strikes  the  time,  but  to  be 
a  church-bell,  which  sounds  with  its  own  tongue,  and 
which  the  favorite  rings  whether  for  funerals  or  wed- 
dings. 

Tutor !  Have  at  heart  no  work  of  your  pupil  so  much 
as  love  of  work  ;  it  is  this  he  should  learn  by  that.  And, 
unless  he  learn  to  be  a  lover  of  work,  he  will  in  after 
years  (as  Vopiscus  tells  us  the  Emperor  Carinus  did)  keep 
a  servant  to  write  his  signature ;  or,  if  he  write  it  himself, 
he  will  do  so  like  that  self-made  slave  of  his  own  servants, 
Philip  the  Fifth  of  Spain. 

On  the  throne  everything,  even  time,  —  as  in  Basle,  — 
is  wanted  to  be  an  hour  earlier  than  it  really  is  ;  thought, 
consequently,  long  before  reflection.     Royal  impromptus, 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       273 

as  the  winged  seeds  of  action,  are  always  dangerous ;  they 
often  make  long  diets  and  long  judgment-days  necessary, 
and  have  to  count  forced  imposts  instead  of  freely  granted 
tributes.  How  many  subjects  has  a  hon-mot  killed!  How 
many  suggestions  of  the  wicked  one  have  been  acted  on 
by  haste  !  He  who  needs  proofs  has  but  to  inquire  of  the 
chief  justice  in  history.  "What  more  excellent  object,  I 
ask,  can  a  teacher  set  before  himself  than  to  accustom  his 
pupil  never  to  say  an  important  yes  or  no,  never  to  express 
a  like  or  a  dislike,  without  taking  an  hour's  respite  to  con- 
sider the  question,  request,  or  sin  ?  With  such  a  letter  of 
grace  {moratorium)  he  might  write  himself  a  brevet  of 
infallibility.  But  why  speak  I  of  princes  ?  Every  one  is 
in  this  position ;  only  that  the  high  rank  of  monarchs  fear- 
fully increases  the  rolling,  avalanche-like  consequences  of 
every  sound.  And  it  is  precisely  in  the  higher  ranks  that 
men  perversely  attend  more  to  deeds  expressed  in  words, 
—  bon-mots,  impromptus,  &c.,  than  to  words  expressed  in 
deeds,  —  decretals,  resolutions,  &c. ;  and  take  time  to  con- 
sider a  jest,  though  not  a  serious  matter.     Let  the  teacher 

invert  this  inversion Dear  Adelhard,  I  am  myself 

this  moment  guilty  of  improvising  ;  so  difficult  is  it  to  be 
avoided.  For  this  last  article  for  the  album  I  really  made 
for  the  letter ;  the  former  would  require  it  to  be  much 
more  compressed.  So  powerful  is  the  influence  of  the 
present  moment ;  one  confounds  letter,  album,  and  book 
all  together.  Fare  you  well,  dear  Adelhard ;  and,  in  this 
respect,  fare  better  than  I. 

I  wished  to  add  this  apothegm  also :  "  Above  all 
things,  inspire  a  prince  w^ith  the  taste  for  reading, —  not 
merely  the  inscriptions  on  triumphal  arches  and  in  illu- 
minations, but  books  and  acts  " ;  but,  if  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, it  is  already  written  in  your  album.  Cabinet 
12*  K 


274  LEVANA. 

secrets,  like  the  light  of  the  fixed  stars,  reach  us  for  the 
first  time  many  years  after  their  emanation ;  but  the 
secrets  of  the  study,  like  the  light  of  the  planets,  never 
reach  so  far  as  the  fixed  stars. 

Yours 

J.  P.  F.  R. 

Postscript  —  As  there  was  no  post,  this  letter  to  you, 
excellent  prince's  tutor,  has  lain  in  my  desk  during  the 
sale  of  the  whole  first  edition  of  Levana ;  it  was  printed, 
but  not  despatched :  luckily,  while  preparing  the  second, 
a  young  tutor,  dismissed  from  a  certain  court,  visited  me, 
and  promised  to  deliver  you  my  letter.  For  the  rest  he 
curses  the  whole  matter  for  hours  every  day,  and  declares 
he  would  almost  rather  be  a  prince  than  a  prince's  tutor  ; 
for  the  one  only  spoils  himself,  whereas  the  tutor  spoils 
others  too.  He  openly  derides  my  whole  letter  to  you, 
as  a  mere  waste  of  paper  and  ink,  and  says  I  have  only 
forgotten  the  principal  thing,  the  so-called  governor  both 
of  prince  and  tutor.  He  asked  me  to  teach  him  "  what 
use  it  was  to  be  the  very  best  of  tutors,  as  a  man  must 
become  the  very  worst  if  the  prince's  governor  so  choose ; 
who  is  regarded  as  the  upper  house  to  the  tutor's  lower 
house,  or  college  rector  to  his  inferior  school."  But, 
instead  of  waiting  my  instructions,  he  continued  angrily: 
"  The  governors,  who  never  permitted  him  even  to  be 
vice-governor  to  the  prince,  were  as  old  in  rank  as  in  age, 
and  consequently  took  precedence  in  everything  of  him, 
who  was  only  perfectly  capable  of  all  his  duties  ;  so  that 
the  young  prince  regarded  him  merely  as  a  subordinate, 
as  a  kind  of  school-fox  whose  master  Reynard  was  the 
governor.  The  word  of  a  man  who  sat  at  the  same  din- 
ner table  with  the  prince  was  more  esteemed  by  him  and 


ON    THE    EDUCATION    OF    A    PRINCE.       275 

by  the  whole  court  than  the  sermons  of  one  who  might 
only  sit  near  him  at  the  study-table." 

I  replied,  that  on  this  matter  I  would  take  the  part  of 
the  men  of  the  world.  The  schoolman  has  about  as  much 
relation  to  the  nobleman  as  the  Abbot  Fowler,  for  instance, 
has  to  a  fowl.  As,  according  to  Kant's  observations,  we 
soon  grow  weary  of  the  most  excellent  human  singing, 
but  never  of  the  perpetual  singing  of  birds,  because  it  is 
subject  to  no  rule,  and  its  variations  are  quite  undeter- 
mined ;  so  the  scholar,  by  the  monotonous  unity  of  his 
thoughts  and  discourses,  always  aiming  at  one  end,  soon 
drives  to  sleep ;  whereas  the  courtier,  flitting  from  one 
subject  to  another,  engages  the  attention,  just  because  he 
says  nothing  very  definite,  and  because  vaiiety  of  mere 
nothings  gives  more  pleasure  than  uniformity  of  some- 
thing. 

"  A  governor,"  continued  he,  "  who  only  thinks  of  king, 
court,  and  nobility,  and  orders  the  prince  to  be  educated 
only  for  these,  will  bar  with  the  collars  of  his  multitudi- 
nous orders  all  the  havens  into  which  a  tutor  would  con- 
duct his  pupil  to  the  sound  of  silver  flutes.  He  will  throw 
in  his  teeth  the  accurate  'revision'  of  his  plan  of  education 
(none  so  good  as  that  which  is  printed) ;  and  if  the  tutored 
tutor  think  differently,  he  has  only  the  choice  of  being 
frightened  or  being  angry." 

*  "  Truly,  not  bad  ! "  said  I,  "  for  by  this  means  the  tutor 
will  be  educated  to  be  tender  and  better  than  he  can  edu- 
cate the  prince.  In  the  same  way,  cooks  make  poultry 
tender  and  tasty  by  putting  them  into  a  pond,  or  a  turkey 
by  throwing  it  from  a  considerable  height  before  killing  it, 
—  this  has  the  effect  of  fright  on  them ;  or  they  irritate 
them  by  whistUng  and  shaking  red  cloths  at  them, — which 
has  the  effect  of  rage." 


276  LEVANA. 

"  We  must  then  experience,"  concluded  the  tutor,  "  what 
is  the  consequence  if  the  governor  can  use  the  sceptre  as  a 
good  school-cane  to  the  citizen  teacher;  I  do  not  mean 
what  the  governor  becomes  (for  he  goes  away  like  myself), 
but  what  the  innocent  prince  becomes,  in  whom,  placed  as 
a  young  master  between  a  flattering  upper  servant  and  a 
kneeling  slave,  no  manly  character  can  possibly  be  devel- 
oped, —  no  bones  grow." 

"  But,"  said  I,  "  I  do  not  see  the  evil  of  that.  I  myself 
know  many  people  of  rank,  whose  whole  inner  man  does 
not  contain  one  whole  bone,  but  who  precisely  resemble 
people  struck  by  a  thunder-bolt,  in  whom  the  lightning 
generally  only  breaks  the  bones,  without  in  the  smallest 
degree  burning  or  injuring  the  external  form.  And  so  it 
is,  my  friend  ! " 

As,  however,  we  could  neither  of  us  quite  agree,  and  I 
could  not  become  perfectly  serious,  I  think  I  have  adopted 
a  very  sensible  plan  in  sending  him  to  you  with  this  post- 
script, so  that  you  may  either  alter  or  confirm  his  opinion. 
You  must  certainly  know  whether  there  is  any  difference 
among  governors,  and  whether  the  course  of  the  little 
prince  may  not  occasionally  describe  an  accurate  ellipse 
round  the  two  foci.  Heaven  grant  that,  and  many  other 
things  too ! 


SIXTH  FRAGMENT. 


ON  THE  MORAL  EDUCATION  OF  BOYS. 

Chap.  I.  Moral  Strength;  Physical  Strength;  Games  of  Hurting; 
Injuriousness  of  Fear  and  of  Fright;  Love  of  Life;  Insufficiency 
of  the  mere  Passions;  Necessity  of  a  Youthful  Ideal,  §§  103-110. 
—  Chap.  II.  Truthfulness,  Charades,  and  Children's  Plays,  §§  111 
- 115.  —  Chap.  III.  Education  of  the  Affections ;  Means  of  arous- 
ing them;  Love  of  Animals,  §§  116-121.  —  Chap.  IV.  Supple- 
mental Appendix  on  Moral  Education ;  Various  Consolatory  Rules ; 
Stories  of  Parents  for  their  own  Children;  Children's  Journeys; 
Danger  of  a  Premature  Feeling  of  Shame,  and  on  the  Modesty  of 
Children,  §§  122-129. 


CHAPTEK    I. 


§  103. 

ONOR,  honesty,  steadfast  will,  truthfulness,  in- 
difference towards  threatening  wounds  and 
endurance  of  those  inflicted,  openness,  self- 
respect,  just  self-appreciation,  contempt  for 
the  opinion  of  the  world,  justice  and  perseverance,  —  all 
these  and  similar  words  indicate  only  one  half  of  the 
moral  nature,  viz.  moral  strength  and  elevation  of  char- 
acter. The  other  half  embraces  all  our  connections  with 
others ;  the  realm  of  love,  gentleness,  benevolence,  —  in 
short,  what  may  be  called  moral  beauty. 

If  the  one  seems  to  turn  inwards,  towards  itself,  the 
other  outwards,  towards  others ;  the  one  to  be  a  repelling, 


278  LEVANA. 

the  other  an  attracting  pole ;  if  the  one  regards  an  idea 
as  holy,  and  the  other  rather  esteems  life  to  be  so,  yet 
both  are  equally  elevated  above  self,  which  is  only  the 
object  of  the  animal  propensities,  and  of  the  sins  against 
the  twin  stars  of  the  heart ;  for  honor,  as  well  as  love, 
sacrifices  selfishness.  Moreover  love  does  not  seek  and 
contemplate  in  another  what  it  avoids  in  itself;  but  it 
beholds  and  embraces  therein  the  image  of  the  divinity. 
We  find  God  twice  :  once  within,  once  without  us ; 
within  us  as  an  eye,  without  us  as  light.  Yet  is  it  every- 
where the  same  ethereal  fire,  indifferent  whether  it  spring 
up  from  without  or  within ;  and,  indeed,  the  one  presup- 
poses the  other,  and  consequently  a  third  which  produces 
and  unites  both.  Call  it  the  Holy.  In  the  spiritual 
world  there  is  properly  no  out  and  no  in.  Love  is  natu- 
rally the  companion  of  true  moral  strength,  as  we  ever 
find  sweet  fruits  on  strong  branches ;  weakness  trembles 
like  a  Vesuvius  only  to  destroy.  Even  so,  pure  love  can- 
not merely  do  all,  but  ^s  all. 

§104. 

But  here  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  difference  of 
appearances,  not  with  their  foundations.  The  former 
show  us  man  born  and  fitted  out  more  for  moral  strength, 
or  honor,  and  woman  for  moral  beauty,  or  love.  From 
our  former  position,  "that  woman  does  not  divide  and 
contemplate  herself  as  man  does,"  we  might  deduce 
the  division  of  the  two  moral  poles,  with  varj'ing  balance 
between  both  sexes,  ascribing  love  to  the  female,  and 
strength  to  the  male,  because  the  former  is  more  occupied 
with  what  is  external  to  herself,  but  the  latter  in  examin- 
ing what  passes  within  himself.  But  why  reason  about 
facts?     This  moral  difference  between  the  sexes  is  re- 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  279 

peated,  although  in  miniature,  in  every  individual ;  but 
more  of  this  hereafter.  We  will  now  view  the  educa- 
tional means  of  adapting  the  boy  to  his  destination  by 
developing  moral  strength  of  character. 

§  105. 

One  age  requires  men  in  order  to  exist,  another  in 
order  to  subsist ;  ours  needs  both ;  and  yet  education 
dreads  nothing  more  than  making  boys  manly,  and, 
where  possible,  strives  to  unman  them.  Nurseries  and 
school-rooms  are  like  altars  in  the  temples  which  the 
Romans  dedicated  to  Favor  and  Pallor  (pale  fear).  As 
though  the  world  were  now  too  full  of  courage,  teachers 
ordinarily  ingraft  fear  by  punishments  and  actions,  but 
only  recommend  courage  by  words.  Not  undertaking, 
but  letting  alone,  receives  the  victor's  crown. 

In  Nestor's  order  of  battle  the  timid  occupied  the  mid- 
dle ranks ;  it  is  so  also  in  our  states ;  and  more  physical 
couraore  is  found  in  the  hiorhest  and  lowest  ranks  than  the 

o  o 

scholar  or  the  schoolmaster  usually  possesses.  Hence 
the  latter  expects  his  boys  to  resemble  the  Iroquois,  who 
think  a  hare  is  a  deity ;  and  even  endeavors  to  raise 
them  to  a  place  among  these  gods.  The  ancients,  in 
their  veneration  for  strength,  forgot  benevolence ;  we  err 
in  the  contrary  direction.  The  effeminate  teaching  class 
may,  however,  excuse  itself  by  this  disappointment  ; 
namely,  that  the  courage  of  children,  owing  to  their 
deficiency  in  the  counterbalance  of  prudence,  readily 
turns  to  rashness,  and  attacks  teacher  and  fate.  But 
let  us  remember  that  years  do  indeed  increase  light,  but 
not  force,  and  that  it  is  easier  to  provide  a  pilgrim  on 
life's  journey  with  a  guide,  than  to  restore  to  him,  Uke  a 
statue,  the  legs  and  wings  wliich  have  been  removed  lest 


28o  LEVANA. 

he  should  run  or  fly  away.     We  will,  like  warriors,  begin 
with  common  courage,  and  proceed  upwards  to  honor. 

§106. 

The  body  is  the  coat  of  mail  and  breastplate  of  the 
soul ;  so  let  this  in  the  first  place  be  hardened  into  steel 
by  heat  and  cold.  Let  every  father  provide,  as  well  as 
he  can,  a  little  gymnastic  school  round  his  house;  the 
very  street  in  which  the  boy  plays,  runs,  falls,  climbs, 
and  bids  defiance  is  something.  Wounds  got  in  the 
street  are  sooner  healed,  and  more  wholesome,  than 
wounds  got  at  school,  and  they  teach  better  how  to  bear 
pain.  Out  of  the  wild  English  youth  there  grows  a 
thoughtful  member  of  parliament ;  as  out  of  the  early 
Roman  robbers  a  virtuous  self-sacrificing  senate  rose. 
The  Romans  bled  the  rashly  brave;  the  schoolmaster's 
rod  also  lets  blood ;  and  the  starving  method,  solitary  con- 
finement, &c.,  pales  the  remainder.  No  power  should 
ever  be  weakened,  —  one  cannot  repeat  this  too  often,  — 
but  only  its  counterbalancing  power  strengthened:  in 
squirrels,  the  upper  row  of  teeth  often  grows  painfully 
long,  but  only  when  the  lower  one  is  lost.  A  rash 
twelve-year-old  Dreadnought  might  soon  enough  be  made 
thoughtful ;  you  need  but  read  through  with  him  some 
anatomical  or  surgical  book ;  but  this  remedy,  like  arse- 
nic, is  only  to  be  used  in  the  most  desperate  cases,  and  in 
the  smallest  possible  doses.  Bodily  weakness  makes 
mental  weakness;  and  mental  weakness  leaves  deeper, 
ay,  perpetual  traces  behind  it :  the  broken  ai-m  is  much 
sooner  cured  than  the  broken  heart  of  a  child.  And, 
lastly,  children  are  spoiled  in  two  different  ways  in  the 
yoimg  sick-room;  the  healthy  by  severity,  the  sick  by 
weak  indulgence.     Now  the  sick  would  be  much  better 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  281 

served  by  the  mental  excitement  of  pictures,  little  games 
on  the  pillow,  and  tales,  than  by  physical  indulgences. 
If  health  be  the  first  step  to  courage,  bodily  exercise  ia 
the  second  against  pain.  This  in  modern  times  is  not 
only  abandoned,  but  actually  contradicted;  and  with  us 
the  boy  is  fastened  up,  not  that  he  may  learn,  but  that  he 
may  not  learn  to  bear  it,  and  that  he  may  at  once  begin 
to  confess.     Detestable  method! 

How  can  the  change  of  the  torturing  system,  formerly 
adopted  by  the  judicial  courts,  so  far  confuse  you  with 
regard  to  education,  that  you  do  not  value  the  power  of 
the  mentally  strong,  opposed  to  the  physically  strong,  but 
consider  firmness  a  repetition  of  the  denounced  fault? 
This  is  as  egregious  a  mistake  as  Locke's  advice  to  dis- 
gust children  with  card-playing,  by  compelling  them  to 
practise  it ;  for  this  official  change,  produced  by  disgust 
at  the  compulsory  repetition  of  the  game,  would  be  a 
worse  disease  than  that  it  cured.  Must  we  not,  in  this 
place,  severely  attack  another  error  in  education,  —  a 
most  repulsive  one,  though  concealed  by  the  showy  paint 
of  custom,  —  it  is  that  of  harshly  punishing  children 
before  other  children,  in  order  to  make  them  a  so-called 
example  ?  For  either  the  child  as  a  cold  observer  shares 
the  sentiments  of  the  passionate  punisher,  and  feels  no 
compassion  for  the  torture-wrung  cries  of  his  equal,  no 
disgust  at  the  repulsive  sight  of  the  cruelly  used  victory 
of  the  strong  over  the  weak,  —  and  then,  indeed,  I  know 
not  what  more  his  heart  can  lose,  —  or  else  the  child  ex- 
periences all  the  pain  which  the  judgment-seat  raised  in 
the  nursery  inflicts,  and  so,  as  is  the  case  with  grown-up 
people  at  executions,  thinks  the  punishment  greater  than 
the  fault,  —  and  then  any  advantage  to  be  derived  from 
the  painful  sight  is  lost ;  or,  lastly,  he  at  once  pities  and 


2»2  LEVANA. 

comprehends  the  punishment,  and  feels  the  greatest  dread 
of  such  terrible  pain,  —  and  then  you  certainly  do  secure 
obedience,  but  you  increase  fear.  In  short,  do  not  inflict 
severe  punishments  in  the  presence  of  children ;  be  satis- 
fied that  their  invisibility,  coupled  with  what  is  related  of 
them,  will  secure  the  advantages  without  the  disadvan- 
tages. 

It  would  be  much  more  desirable  to  establish  exercises 
in  bearing  pain,  schools  of  the  cross  in  a  stoic  sense ;  and 
indeed  boys  themselves  have  games  of  a  similar  nature. 
Formerly  in  Mexico  one  child  bound  his  arm  to  that  of 
another  child,  and  placed  a  live  coal  between ;  both  con- 
tended who  should  longest  bear  the  burning  pain.  In 
Montaigne's  childhood,  the  nobility  considered  fencing- 
schools  mean,  because,  by  their  aid,  victory  no  longer 
depended  solely  on  courage.  The  ancient  Danes  did  not 
even  wink  the  eye  at  wounds  in  the  face.  What  was 
formerly  attained  by  whole  nations,  and,  consequently, 
was  not  the  gift  of  birth,  but  of  education,  —  this  surely 
must  be  sufficiently  easy  to  repeat  in  individuals. 

Never  make  lamentation  over  a  child's  hurt,  but  pass 
it  off  with  a  joke.  If  a  little  child  runs  to  you  to  show 
its  hurt,  let  him  wait  a  little  before  he  engages  your  eye 
or  ear,  and  in  the  mean  time  say  quietly  to  him,  "  I  must 
first  finish  my  writing,"  or  "  knit  off  this  needle."  Or  tell 
him  to  go  and  fetch  you  something ;  nothing  draws  the 
thorn  from  the  wound  so  soon  as  action ;  soldiers  do  not 
feel  their  wounds  in  the  heat  of  battle.  "My  nose  is 
bleeding,"  says  the  youngest  child,  in  a  doleful  tone. 
*'  O,  look  at  the  pretty  red  blood,  how  it  drops ;  where  does 
it  come  from  ?  There  was  none  in  your  little  nose  just 
now,"  you  say ;  and  the  pain  is  forgotten  in  the  inquiry, 
—  what  is  internal  in  what  is  external.     Further:  pro- 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  283 

tect  a  child's  ear  even  more  carefully  than  his  eye.  The 
ear  is  especially  the  sense  of  fear ;  hence  those  animals 
which  hear  quickly  are  timid.  As  harmony  holds  the 
heart  entranced  in  delight,  so  does  the  scream  of  fear  in 
horror.  An  inexplicable  sound  is  the  true  night  for  fear. 
The  eye  becomes  at  last  reconciled  to  every  monstrous 
form,  if  it  only  remain  sufficiently  long  before  it ;  but  the 
abyss  of  sound  does  not  become  clearer,  but  more  dread- 
ful, by  continuance.  A  little  girl,  to  whom  the  color  of 
the  chimney-sweeper  had  only  seemed  curious,  received 
the  first  fright  in  her  life  from  hearing  the  uninterrupted 
noise  of  his  sweeping.  Give,  therefore,  to  every  strange 
noise,  such  as  that  of  the  wind,  some  merry  name.  Our 
age  is  the  first  that  has  made  it  a  duty  to  devise  rules 
against  that  fear  which  disarms  and  fetters  mankind.  In 
every  child  there  lies,  side  by  side  with  the  romantic  hope 
of  an  infinite  heaven,  the  equally  romantic  dread  of  an 
infinite  Orcus.  But  you  hold  this  Orcus  dreadfully  open 
before  the  child,  if  you  give  this  ideal  fear  an  object  by 
naming  such  a  thing.  The  author  committed  this  error 
by  saying  to  his  children,  in  order  to  prevent  their  hating 
and  fearing  soldiers  or  other  people,  "  Only  bad  men  are 
to  be  feared."  Hereby  their  fear,  previously  scattered 
over  various  visible  objects,  was  concentrated  in  the  un- 
changing focus  of  a  single  invisible  object ;  and  they  car- 
ried this  fancied  bugbear  with  them  everywhere,  and 
saw  it  in  everything.  In  no  emotion  of  the  soul  —  not 
even  in  love  —  does  fancy  push  its  creative  and  ruling 
power  so  far  as  in  fear.  Children,  else  religiously  believ- 
ing all  their  parents  say,  anxiously  desire  the  word  which 
is  to  arm  them  against  ghosts,  and  yet,  with  that  very 
dictum  on  their  lips,  succumb  to  imagination  in  their 
hearts.     Further:  children  who  have  long  since  exam- 


284  LEVANA. 

ined,  and  even  themselves  made,  the  object  of  their 
alarm,  —  a  cloak,  for  instance,  and  a  hat  hung  upon  a 
stick,  —  will  yet  run  away  from  it  with  terror.  So  they 
fear  less  what  has  ah-eady  hurt  them  than  what  their 
parents,  either  by  looks  or  words,  have  mentioned  with 
fear;  a  mouse,  for  instance.  Therefore,  especially  avoid 
and  guard  against  all  suddenness  of  speech,  —  such  as 
exclaiming  in  the  night,  "  Look ! "  or  even  "  Listen  ! " 
which  alarms  yet  more,  —  and  of  appearance  or  action ; 
for  in  that  case  the  senses  do  not  restrain,  but  only  in- 
flame, the  fancy,  and  the  reality  is  wildly  confused  by  the 
hasty  explanation.  Thus,  alarm  during  thunder-storms 
principally  arises  from  the  rapidity  with  which  the  light- 
ning momentarily  reveals  the  dark  sky  to  the  straining 
sight.  If  the  whole  firmament  remained  one  long  flash, 
we  should  fear  it  less. 

Do  not  merely  spare  children  reading  any  painful  his- 
tories, but  also  every  verbal  description  of  any  unknown 
physical  suffering  ;  for  in  children  of  a  lively  imagination 
mental  fear  easily  springs  out  of  bodily  fear,  and  this 
—  which  is  never  considered  —  even  through  dreams. 
These  gigantic  chaotic  painters  in  the  mind  form,  out  of 
the  little  terrors  of  the  day,  those  monstrous  masks  of  the 
Furies  which  wake  and  nourish  the  fear  of  ghosts  which 
slumbers  in  every  human  being.  We  should  attend  far 
more  to  the  dreams  of  children  than  to  those  of  mature 
persons,  especially  on  account  of  this  difference,  —  that  in 
ours  resound  the  echoes  of  our  childhood ;  what  then  in 
theirs  ?  —  Who  has  not  experienced  sudden  presentiments, 
an  inexplicable  and  perfectly  unexpected  foretaste  of 
approaching  good  or  ill  fortune,  wafted  upon  him  like  air 
from  some  mountain  precipice  ?  Or  who  in  new  coun- 
tries, occurrences,  or  men  has  not  sometimes  found,  deep 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  285 

within  him,  a  mirror  whereon,  from  old  time,  these  very 
things  were  darkly  pictured  and  beheld  ?  And  to  whom, 
in  subsequent  dreams  and  fevers,  has  not  the  same  ser- 
pent form,  the  same  misshapen,  tortuous  monster,  con- 
tinually reappeared,  of  which,  in  his  whole  remembered 
life,  he  had  beheld  no  archetype  ?  Might  not  these  shapes 
be  buried  remnants  of  old  childhood's  dreams,  which  rise 
from  the  deep,  like  sea-monsters,  in  the  night  ? 

Be  careful  to  conceal  your  own  grief  about  others' 
necessities  or  your  own.  Nothing  is  more  infectious  than 
fear  and  courage  ;  but  the  parent's  fear  is  doubled  in  the 
child  ;  for  where  the  giant  trembles  the  dwarf  must  surely 
fall. 

The  father  especially  should  never  come  before  his 
children  with  a  melancholy,  penitential  face,  or  the  ap- 
pearance of  much  suffering,  as  if  there  were  so  much  to 
lose  in  life  that  he  could  even  lose  himself :  at  most  let 
him  only  point  out  a  gloomy  future,  but  not  anxiety  con- 
cerning it ;  and  at  least  let  him  have  no  other  copies  of 
his  lamentations  and  "liber  tristium"  than  one  for  his 
wife  and  friend.  Yet  the  very  opposite  of  this  is  most 
generally  the  case.  It  is  in  the  house  (as  though  every 
barricade  and  city  wall  must  make  people  cowardly),  in 
some  hole  in  the  shore,  that  the  externally  armed  lobster 
casts  his  shell ;  and  it  is  in  the  nest  with  its  poor  little 
ones  that  the  bold  eagle  moults,  thus  permitting  them  only 
to  see  its  domestic  cowardice,  not  its  public  courage. 
Rather  4et  every  one  resemble  the  pastor  Seider,  who,  in 
reading  the  newspapers,  lamented  that  of  all  the  printed 
accounts  of  his  sufferings  not  one  was  true. 

§  107. 
Since   indifference  to  actual  blows   and  disregard  of 
anticipated  ones  mutually  strengthen  each  other,  I  hope 


286  LEVANA. 

I  may  continue  to  confound  them  without  reproach. 
Courage  does  not  consist  in  blindly  overlooking  danger, 
but  in  meeting  it  with  the  eyes  open.  Therefore  do  not 
attempt  to  make  boys  brave  by  saying,  "  It  will  not  hurt 
you,"  —  for  in  that  case  the  sheep  would  fight  as  bravely 
as  the  lion,  —  but  by  saying  more  truly,  "  What  is  it  ? 
Only  a  hurt."  For  you  may  safely  reckon  on  a  some- 
thing in  the  human  breast  which  no  wounds  can  reach, 
on  a  steadfast  celestial  axle  among  the  mutable  earthly 
axles ;  insomuch  as  man,  unlike  the  beasts,  has  some- 
thing more  than  pain  to  dread. 

There  is  a  courage  manifested  against  the  future  and 
the  imagination,  and  also  a  courage  naanifested  against 
the  -present  and  the  imagination :  the  one  is  opposed  to 
fear^  the  other  to  terror.  If  there  must  be  the  one  or 
the  other,  fear  is,  for  children,  preferable  to  terror,  but 
not  so  for  men !  If  fear,  as  the  Cardinal  de  Retz  said, 
enfeebles  and  distorts  the  understanding  more  than  all 
the  other  emotions  of  the  mind,  terror  entirely  destroys 
it,  and  puts  madness  in  its  place.  Fear  may  be  imparted 
so  slowly  and  in  so  carefully  measured  doses,  that  it  will 
rather  act  as  an  incitement  than  as  a  poison  to  thought 
and  resolution.  Whereas  terror  —  whether  inspired  by 
sight  or  sound  —  is  a  flash  of  lightning  shivering  the 
whole  man,  unarming  and  slaughtering  him  at  one 
stroke.  Chiarugi  *  shows,  on  the  authority  of  Giasone, 
that  children  who  have  been  brought  up  harshly,  and 
kept  in  order  by  images  of  terror,  frequently  'fall  vic- 
tims to  insanity. 

One  shock  of  terror  may  produce  long-lasting  fear;  but 
fear  cannot  give  birth  to  terror,  for  its  imagination,  dwell- 
ing on  the  future,  finds  even  its  present  there. 
*  See  his  work  on  Insanity,  b.  i.  §  282. 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  287 

With  the  exception  of  good  health,  there  is  no  preserv- 
ative from  terror  save  acquaintance  with  its  object :  it  is 
produced  only  by  what  is  new.  The  bravest  may  be 
terrified,  as  the  Romans  were  by  elephants,  or  as  the 
bravest  modern  European  might  be  by  some  strange, 
gigantic  beast-like  form,  —  di'opped  out  of  Jupiter,  let  us 
suppose,  —  whose  poisonous  qualities  and  modes  of  attack 
he  knew  not. 

Then  arm  the  young  mind  against  the  thunder-storms 
of  accident  by  a  lightning-conductor  which  you  yourself 
make.  The  present  assembly-hall  for  the  sittings  of  col- 
leges and  societies  of  learned  men  unfortunately  helps 
them  to  pass  through  their  sitting  mode  of  life  and  death 
without  becoming  remarkably  brave.  It  is  a  significant 
fact,  that  all  important  ofiices  are  marked  by  the  appen- 
dage of  a  seat,  —  the  bench  of  judges  and  of  bishops,  the 
chair  of  divinity,  the  stool  of  prayer,  the  seat  of  instruc- 
tion, —  and  their  reward  is  rest  in  Abraham's  bosom,  or 
on  the  thrones  of  the  twelve  Apostles.  He  who  sits  when 
attacked  by  an  enemy  loses  his  courage,  as  is  shown  by 
every  regiment  awaiting  an  attack:  and  we  run  away 
with  our  heels,  where  alone  the  Homeric  Achilles  was 
vulnerable.  But  even  in  modern  times  the  runner  would 
be  brave  if  no  inimical  runner  pursued  him.  No  Napo- 
leon could  spend  sufficient  money  in  building  golden 
bridges  for  a  flying  enemy. 

As  a  person  can  be  really  terrified  only  once  by  the 
same  thing,  I  think  it  possible  to  spare  children  the  real- 
ity by  sportive  representations  of  alarming  circumstances. 
For  instance :  I  go  with  my  little  nine-year-old  Paul  to 
walk  in  a  thick  wood.  Suddenly  three  blackened  and 
armed  ruffians  rush  out  and  fall  upon  us,  because  I  had 
hired  them  for  the  adventure  with  a  small  thieves'  pre- 


28«  LEVANA. 

mium  the  day  before.  "We  two  are  only  provided  with 
sticks,  but  the  band  of  robbers  are  armed  with  swords  and 
a  pistol  without  bullets.  Here  nothing  is  of  use  but  pres- 
ence of  mind  and  resolution.  One  is  opposed  to  three 
(for  Paul  must  be  reckoned  as  nothing,  though  I  call 
upon  him  to  fight)  ;  but  because  I  turn  away  the  pistol, 
so  that  it  may  miss  me,  and  strike  the  dagger  out  of  one 
of  the  thieves'  hand  with  my  stick,  and  seize  upon  it  to 
attack  the  third,  I  hope  that  the  ruffianly  troop  may  be 
vanquished,  and  put  to  flight  by  one  honest  man  with  his 
son's  help.  We  pursue  the  routed  army  for  a  little  dis- 
tance, but  soon  desist  as  many  stray  shots  are  fired ;  and 
I  maintain  a  constant  derision  of  the  enemy's  line, — 
which,  like  an  orderly  book-shelf,  only  shows  the  backs, 
—  so  that  even  my  little  ally  can  conclude  for  himself 
how  much  courage  alone  is  superior  to  numbers,  espe- 
cially of  villains,  who,  according  to  all  experience,  are 
seldom  brave.  But  (I  add  in  this  second  edition)  all 
such  games  are  of  doubtful  advantage,  because  of  their 
falsity ;  and  only  by  repetition  can  they  altogether  lose 
the  evils  attendant  even  on  a  fright  which  ends  in  noth- 
ing. A  great  many  tales  of  victorious  courage  are,  per- 
haps, better  means  of  arousing  and  strengthening  that 
virtue. 

Other  "  cloak  and  dagger  pieces,"  as  Bouterwek  tells 
us  the  Spaniards  call  their  intriguing  comedies,  might  be 
tried  advantageously  in  the  night,  in  order  to  bring  the 
fancies,  inspired  by  a  belief  in  ghosts,  to  common  every- 
day light ;  at  the  same  time  I  admit  that  there  is  always 
a  deep-seated  fear  of  this  kind,  which  only  God,  or  the 
next  world,  can  thoroughly  remove.  Even  the  fear  of 
storms  cannot  be  altogether  eradicated,  at  least  by  rea- 
soning ;  the  tranquillity,  or,  still  better,  the  cheerfulness, 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  289 

ot  grown-up  persons  during  them  is  the  best  cure.  Since 
what  is  uncommon  is  most  dreaded,  it  may  perhaps  be 
numbered  among  the  few  advantages  of  a  town-educa- 
tion, that  in  it  the  eye  and  ear  of  a  child  become  indiffer- 
ent to  more  objects  than  they  can  do  in  a  village.  In 
nothing,  fear  itself  scarcely  excepted,  does  a  man  make 
such  rapid  advances  as  in  courage.  Night  marches,  the 
alliance  of  many  boys,  —  for  company  increases  courage 
as  well  as  fear,  —  and  finally  the  histories  of  true  heroes, 
such  as  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  rivet  the  shield  of 
courage  more  and  more  firmly  on  the  breast. 

§108. 

Permit  me  still  to  add  a  few  ingredients  to  the  tonic 
medicines  of  manliness,  ere  I  pass  to  the  mental  means 
of  strengthening  it.  The  following  reflections  may  stand 
in  the  same  relation  as  branches  to  the  top  of  a  tree. 

What,  from  the  Fakeer  to  the  martyrs  of  Christianity, 
of  love,  of  duty,  and  to  those  who  sacrificed  their  lives 
for  liberty,  has  vanquished  pain,  opinion,  desire,  torture  ? 
one  ruling  idea  in  the  heart.  Implant,  then,  in  the  boy 
some  such  living  idea,  were  it  but  that  of  honor,  and  he  is 
fit  to  become  a  man.  Every  fear  may  be  overcome  by 
placing  it  clearly  before  him. 

Every  child  pictures  to  himself  some  position,  some 
trade,  as  the  workhouse  and  sorrow  of  life  ;  and  some 
other  (usually  his  father's)  as  the  belvidere  of  hope. 
Take  from  him  these  erroneous  charts  of  heaven  and  hell, 
which,  like  warrants  of  arrest,  disarm  and  render  him  the 
prisoner  of  fear  and  of  desire.  Bring  him  —  not  by  dead 
listening,  but  by  living  observation  —  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  happiness  of  the  most  various  conditions,  so  that  he 
may  look  upon  life  as  on  the  level  ground  of  a  pleasure 
13  s 


290  LEVANA. 

encampment,  where  even  the  slave  has  pitched  his  tent. 
It  is  much  more  important  that  a  child  should  not  cause- 
lessly dread  and  avoid  any  condition,  however  gloomy, 
than  that  he  should  not  hopefully  desire  and  labor  after 
any,  even  the  most  brilliant ;  for  hope  leaves  us  more  un- 
derstanding and  more  happiness  than  fear.  In  order  to 
extract  from  the  tear-press  of  compassion  some  feeling 
and  pence  for  a  beggar,  you  choose  to  crush  a  power 
which  could  sustain  itself  on  the  beggar's  pallet.  What 
else  do  you  do  than  cause  the  little  shocked  creature  to 
prefer  making  a  hundred  beggars,  in  after  life,  to  being 
one  himself,  and  perhaps  giving  something  to  some  other  ? 
Always  let  oneness  of  purpose  rule  over  a  boy :  he 
wanted,  perhaps,  to  have,  or  to  do,  some  certain  thing ; 
obhge  him,  then,  to  take  or  to  do  it.  And  never  com 
mand  anything  twice. 

Baise  up  in  him  by  every  possible  means  the  conception 
of  a  higher  tribunal  than  that  of  feeling.  If  he  desire  any 
forbidden  thing,  do  not  move  it  further  from,  but  rather 
nearer  to  him,  so  that  he  may  overcome  that  desire  by 
the  sense  of  duty.  Place  your  command  simply  before 
him,  without  any  attractive  concomitants  which  may  make 
it  seem  lighter  than  it  is ;  for,  by  this  delicate  conceal- 
ment of  the  rule,  chance,  which  accustoms  to  nothing,  is 
made  master.  The  manner  in  which  the  command  is 
obeyed  is  of  infinitely  more  importance  than  the  mere  ful- 
filment of  it.  Neither  veil  a  refusal,  as  mothers  are  too 
apt  to  do ;  perpetual  concealments  are  impossible.  Why 
will  you  not  spare  yourself  by  a  plain  No,  and  accustom 
your  boy  to  cheerful  resignation  ?  Quiet  submission  to 
arbitraiy  despotism  weakens  the  character,  but  to  neces- 
sity strengthens  it ;  be  then  a  fate  to  your  child !  A 
child's  obedience,  without  other  consideration,  can  be  of 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  291 

no  advantage  to  himself;  for  how  if  he  obeyed  all  the 
world  ?  But  it  is  the  motive  to  it,  as  reverential,  loving 
trust,  and  the  perception  of  necessity,  which  ennobles  him. 
Those  who  are  obedient  only  from  fear  become  mechanical 
automata,  hypocrites,  flatterers,  and  are  totally  ungoverna- 
ble when  behind  the  back  of  their  drivers. 

You  bend  (or  break)  the  young  mind  if,  before  the  age 
of  insight  into  political  inequalities,  you  teach  it  to  pay 
other  respect  than  what  is  due  to  every  human  being  and 
to  age ;  unfettered  by  order-ribbons,  bhnd  to  stars  and 
gold,  let  the  child  regard  both  the  servant  and  the  master 
of  his  father  with  equal  respect.  A  child  is  by  nature  a 
Diogenes  to  every  Alexander,  and  a  gentle  Alexander  to 
every  Diogenes  ;  let  him  continue  so ;  never  let  that 
enervating  humility  towards  rank  approach  him. 

Only  great  objects  can  worthily  occupy  a  boy's  heart ; 
and  what,  except  knowledge,  can  fill  it  better  than  the 
love  of  his  country,  even  though  broken  in  the  diamond- 
mortar  of  the  present  age  ?  This  holy  flame  should  be 
fanned  in  all  schools,  but  certainly  not  after  the  method 
of  Tyrtaeus,  that  is,  by  enthusiasm  for  a  decrepit  and 
justly  fallen  state,  but  by  inspiration  of  the  Hermann's 
Battle  Odes  of  Klopstock.  However,  I  scarcely  expect 
this  from  the  old  humanists,  who,  in  great  works  of  art, 
take  most  pleasure  in  that  which  is  most  palatable  in  the 
elephant,  the  feet. 

No  science  has  so  many  teachers  as  the  science  of  hap- 
piness, or  pleasure  ;  as  if  this  had  not  already  planted  its 
throne  in  the  hearts  of  cats,  vultures,  and,  in  short,  of  all 
other  beasts.  Will  you  then  teach  what  the  beasts  know  ? 
Shall  the  human  mind,  like  a  Centaur,  enter  the  world  of 
mind  with  a  body  bearing  the  marks  of  the  spur  ?  For 
what  reason  —  save  a  bad  one  —  are  the  selfish  excesses 


292  LEVANA. 

of  children  more  indulged  than  those  which  dii^play  obt^ti- 
nacy,  the  love  of  eating  more  than  the  love  of  quarrelling, 
as  if  the  teeth  for  tearing  and  those  for  chewing  were  not 
equally  important  ?  If  you  seek  to  inspire  reverence  for 
pure  worth,  justice,  and  religion  by  any  other  means  than 
the  simple  forms  of  these  children  of  God,  —  were  it 
merely  by  showing  as  an  appendage  some  advantage 
thence  derivable  to  the  animal  propensities,  instead  of 
teaching  that  they  are  due  sacrifices  to  those  goddesses,  — 
then  have  you  sullied  the  pure  spirit,  and  made  it  little 
and  hypocritical.  You,  like  the  cold  north,  have  suffered 
the  lions  of  the  south  to  shrivel  up  into  cats,  its  crocodiles 
into  lizards. 

If  life  is  a  battle,  let  the  teacher  be  a  poet,  who  may 
animate  the  boy  to  meet  it  with  needful  songs.  Accustom 
him  to  regard  his  future,  not  as  a  path  from  pleasures 
(though  innocent)  to  other  pleasures ;  nor  even  as  a 
gleaning,  from  spring-time  to  harvest,  of  flowers  and 
fruits  ;  but  as  a  time  in  which  he  must  execute  some  long 
plan :  in  short,  let  him  aim  at  a  long  course  of  activity, 
not  of  pleasure.  Enjoyment  soon  wearies  both  itself  and 
us  ;  eflfort,  never.  That  man  is  happy,  for  instance,  who 
devotes  his  hfe  to  the  cultivation  of  an  island,  to  the  dis- 
covery of  one  that  is  lost,  or  of  the  extent  of  the  ocean. 
In  London  it  is  he  w^ho  was  born  rich,  not  he  who  has 
made  himself  rich,  that  commits  suicide ;  and,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  picture,  it  is  not  the  poor  man,  but  he  who  has 
become  poor,  that  kills  himself.  The  miser  grows  old 
enjoying  rather  than  wearied  of  life ;  but  the  heir  who 
comes  into  possession  of  his  active  gains  sinks  into  ennui. 
So  I  would  rather  be  the  court  gardener  who  watches  and 
protects  an  aloe  for  fifteen  years,  until  at  last  it  opens  to 
him  the  heaven  of  its  blossom,  than  the  prince  who  is 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  293 

hastily  called  to  look  at  the  opened  heaven.  The  writer 
of  a  dictionary  rises  every  morning  like  the  sun  to  move 
past  some  little  star  in  his  zodiac  ;  a  new  letter  is  to  him 
a  new  year's  festival,  the  conclusion  of  the  old  one  a  har- 
vest-home ;  and,  since  after  each  capital  letter  the  whole 
alphabet  follows  successively,  the  author  on  his  paper  may 
perhaps  frequently  celebrate  on  one  and  the  same  day  a 
Sunday,  a  Lady-day,  and  a  Crispin's  holiday. 

Do  not  fear  the  rise  of  the  sentiment  of  honor,  which  is 
nothing  worse  than  the  rough  husk  of  self-esteem,  or  the 
expanded  covers  of  the  tender  wings  which  elevate  above 
the  earth  and  its  flowers.  But,  to  raise  and  ennoble  that 
honor  of  the  individual  into  honor  of  the  race,  and  that 
again  into  honor  for  the  worth  of  mind,  never  praise  him 
who  has  gained  a  prize,  but  those  who  rank  below  him  ; 
give  the  honorable  title,  not  as  a  distinction  for  the  steps 
which  have  been  mounted,  but  as  a  notification  of  neigh- 
borhood to  what  is  higher ;  and,  lastly,  let  your  praise 
afford  more  pleasure  because  you  are  pleased  than  the 
enjoyment  of  the  distinction  gives. 

§  109. 

If  man  resembles  iron  in  his  strength,  he  also,  by  the 
inflammability  of  his  passions,  resembles  that  metal  in 
connection  with  sulphur,  at  whose  touch  the  hot  bar  of 
iron  dissolves  in  drops.  Does  mere  passion  give  strength  ? 
As  certainly  as  a  Parisian  revolution  gives  freedom,  or  a 
comet  bright  comet-lighted  nights  ;  only  they  pass  away 
again.  The  most  powerful  men  of  antiquity,  the  rulers 
or  judges  of  their  age,  and  the  examples  of  all  other  ages, 
ever  sprung  from  the  Stoic  school ;  passions  served  them 
only  as  supports  during  storms,  not  as  the  beam  of  a 
balance ! 


294  LEVANA. 

As  with  the  strength,  so  is  it  with  the  Hght  which  pas- 
sions, according  to  the  declaration  of  Helvetius,  ought  to 
throw  upon  their  objects  ;  it  is,  forsooth,  just  as  Chateau- 
briand says,  that  in  storms  rocks  shine  with  the  foam  of 
the  waves,  and  so  warn  off  ships  :  —  very  dear,  and  very 
changeful,  light-houses ! 

Admit  your  boy,  then,  as  much  as  possible  into  the 
Stoic  school ;  and  that  less  by  instruction  than  by  the  ex- 
ample of  true  Stoics  of  all  ages.  But  that  he  may  not 
mistake  the  Stoic  for  a  Hollander,  or  even  a  stupid  savage, 
let  him  see  that  the  true  inner  fire  of  the  breast  glows 
most  intensely  in  those  men  who  manifest  through  life  a 
steadfast  will,  and  not,  like  the  slaves  of  passion,  various 
isolated  ebullitions  and  desires :  and  name  to  him  such 
men  as  Socrates  and  Cato,  who  were  animated  by  a 
constant,  but  therefore  tranquil  inspiration. 

§110. 

This  steadfast  volition,  which  tranquillizes  every  mental 
tumult,  does  not  presuppose  any  mere  single  object,  but 
the  grand  final  aim  of  life,  —  a  high  ideal,  —  which  is  the 
central  sun  of  all  its  revolutions.  It  can,  therefore,  only 
produce  a  brave  or  great  life ;  but  not  a  great  or  brave 
individual  action  :  of  this,  indeed,  every  weakling  is  capa- 
ble. And  so  it  never  presents  the  spectacle  of  a  lonely 
mountain,  though  there  are  such  upon  the  earth,  but  it 
resembles  those  continuous  chains  of  mountain-like  clouds 
we  see  in  the  sky. 

An  unchanging  will  can  only  aim  at  what  is  universal, 
at  what  is  divine,  be  it  freedom,  or  religion,  or  science,  or 
art.  The  more  divided  the  will  is,  the  more  is  it  liable  to 
be  disturbed  by  the  outer  world.  As  man  —  in  opposition 
to  the  beasts,  which  only  apprehend  the  single  individuals 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF   BOYS.  295 

presented  to  their  senses  —  extends  and  resolves  the 
known  world  into  various  species,  and  his  thoughts  into 
categories,  so  does  the  ideal  concentrate  the  desires  in  one 
general  all-embracing  effort. 

This  ideal  can  be  imparted  by  no  education,  —  for  it  is 
our  very  inmost  self,  —  but  it  must  be  presupposed,  and 
so  may  be  animated  by  all.  Life  is  kindled  only  by  life ; 
and  the  highest  life  can  only  be  called  into  existence  in  a 
child  by  example,  whether  present  or  historical,  or,  which 
unites  both,  by  poetry. 

The  present  living  time  cannot  so  easily  purchase  or 
find  great  men  as  little  tin  figures  for  children.  But  the 
distant  history  of  the  universe  can  furnish  them  to  us :  — 
we  need  but  call  to  mind  the  soul-stirring  contempt  of  life 
displayed  in  wars  for  freedom  which  would  have  immor- 
talized Plutarch,  had  he  been  its  historian,  as  certainly 
as  his  ancient  heroes;  —  but  it  has  found  no  Plutarch. 
Greatness,  if  not  misrepresented,  is  yet  forgotten ;  and 
so,  in  the  midst  of  the  best  present  time,  we  yet  need  the 
mighty  past,  as  birds  of  passage  do  the  moonshine,  to  fly 
into  warm  countries.  Parents  and  teachers  and  a  few 
acquaintances  are,  unfortunately,  placed  before  the  grow- 
ing boy  instead  of  the  saints'  images  of  the  ideal,  —  bad 
and  useless !  A  lawgiver,  or  any  man,  who  daily  in  the 
child's  presence  changes  from  dressing-gown  to  dress-coat, 
can  never  arouse  that  purest  sentiment  (which  Chateau- 
briand considers  wonder)  in  whose  heights  all  the  stars 
of  the  child's  ideal  move  and  shine.  If  children  must 
pass  behind  the  light  of  fair  examples,  why,  O  why 
should  you  give  them  gloomy  instead  of  glorious  ones  ? 

But  Clio,  the  Muse  of  the  past,  stands  by  you,  and  calls 
her  father  Apollo  to  her  assistance.  Only  fill  the  boy's 
mind  with  the  glorified  world  of  heroes,  with  lovingly 


296  LEVANA. 

painted  pictures  of  great  men  of  every  kind,  and  his  in- 
born ideal  will  not  first  be  called  to  life  in  the  midst  of 
that  work-a-day  ideal  which  also  sleeps  in  every  one. 

So  let  every  poetic  ideal  shine  free  and  bright  before 
him  ;  his  eye  will  not  thereby  be  blinded  to  two  greater 
ideals,  —  to  that  which  his  own  conscience  commands  him 
to  be,  and  to  the  idea  of  God. 

The  educator,  Campe,  rightly  recommends  the  illu- 
mined hemisphere  of  the  present  human  race  to  be  turned 
towards  children ;  but  certainly  not  that  they  may  thereby 
learn  patience  towards  the  mediocre,  —  impatience  were 
better,  —  but  that  the  glory  of  the  world,  supposing  it 
to  come  from  dew-drops  rather  than  jewels,  may  shine 
through  their  morning.  What  I  consider  dangerous,  — 
even  more  dangerous  than  the  representation  of  man- 
devils,  as  every  child  daily  hears  of  their  hellish  master 
without  injury, —  is,  laying  mixed  characters  before  them 
from  which  to  select  those  worthy  of  imitation ;  you  might 
as  well  set  a  child  to  imitate  his  own  similarly  mixed 
nature.  What  else  does  a  boy  learn  from  that  many- 
godded  confederation-morality,  but  to  apply  the  easy 
balance  between  victory  and  defeat  to  himself?  You 
might  also  apply  much  more  closely  the  Gospel  doe- 
trine  of  forbearance  towards  human  infirmities,  —  namely, 
towards  his  own. 

Much  that  is  very  plausible  and  very  prolix  will  be 
urged  against  this  idealization  of  youth  by  pedagogic 
elephant-hunters,  who  hunt  down  what  is  great  in  order 
to  have  it  tame,  serviceable,  and  toothless  in  their  stables. 
"  All  this  is  very  fine,  but  only  fit  for  the  world  of  ro- 
mance. What  can  come  out  of  such  excessive  straining 
of  the  young  mind,  but  a  vain  contemplation  and  useless 
opposition   to   the   real   world,   by   which,   nevertheless, 


MORAL    EDUCATION    OF    BOYS.  297 

he  must  live,  and  which  could  scarcely  be  directed  by  the 
dreams  of  a  visionary,  or  of  a  beardless  boy  ?  There  are, 
to  use  the  language  of  novel-writers,  neither  phoenixes 
nor  basilisks,  but  there  are  common  land  and  water 
birds.  In  short,  the  young  man  must  go  forth  into  the 
world,  as  the  old  man  has  done,  and  learn  to  forget  his 
empty  giant  images.  Here  again  the  middle  is  the  right 
course ;  that  is  to  say,  the  youth  may  be  told  that  men 
may  possibly  become  so  and  so ;  however,  one  must  not 
be  too  critical  if  they  do  not,  but  live  for  the  state  in 
which  one  lives :  and  again,  that  those  ideal  notions  are 
only  of  value  and  use  in  so  far  as  they  manifest  those 
qualities  in  connection  with  the  available  reality  ;  so,  in  a 
really  allegorical  sense,  every  scholar  in  Zurich,  be  he 
professor  of  divinity,  law,  or  pedagogy,  must  yet  be  en- 
rolled member  of  some  guild,  that  of  the  shoemakers, 
weavers,  or  some  other  trade.  And  only  thus,  and  not 
otherwise,  can  citizens  be  given  to  their  countiy  worthy 
of  their  parents  and  teachers." 

That  last  I  admit.  But,  good  heavens!  would  you, 
then,  help  to  weaken  what  the  age  and  the  world  weaken 
without  your  aid  ?  You  really  act  as  if  from  after  years, 
from  the  valley  of  life,  gradual  elevation,  instead  of  de- 
pression, were  to  be  expected,  and  men  had  not  to  issue 
forth  and  hasten  over.  Should  you  not  treat  the  eyes  of 
the  mind  at  least  as  carefully  as  those  of  the  body,  before 
which  at  first  you  place  the  concave  glasses  which  dimin- 
ish in  the  smallest  possible  degree,  because  afterwards 
their  use  necessitates  such  as  are  more  concave  and  di- 
minish more  ?  The  worst  that  you  labor  to  avoid  is  only 
that  the  youth  should  exalt  some  reality  into  his  ideal ; 
but  the  stiU  worse  thing  that  you  endeavor  to  effect  is, 
that  he  should  darken  and  incorporate  his  ideal  with 
13* 


298  LEVANA. 

reality.  Oh !  there  is  enough  of  that  without  you.  The 
ripe  sunflower  no  longer  turns  its  heavy  seed-laden  head 
towards  the  sun.  The  Rhine  soon  finds  its  plain,  through 
which  it  creeps  with  no  glittering  waterfalls,  and  bears  its 
burdens  to  Holland.  What  is  all  the  gain  the  young 
soul  can  obtain  from  the  avoidance  of  a  few  false  steps, 
compared  with  the  tremendous  loss  of  the  holy  fire  of 
youth,  of  its  high-soaring  wings,  its  great  plans,  without 
which  it  creeps  as  nakedly  into  cold,  narrow  life  as  most 
men  creep  out  of  it  ?  How  can  life  ripen  without  the 
ideal  glow  of  youth,  or  wine  without  its  August  ?  The 
best  that  men  have  done,  if  it  have  come  in  the  late  sea- 
son of  life,  has  been  but  a  late-growing  seed  which  the 
tree  of  life  in  their  childhood's  paradise  has  borne  :  it  is 
like  the  realized  dreams  of  their  youth.  Have  you  never 
seen  how  a  man  has  been  governed  and  conducted 
throughout  life  by  the  one  godlike  image  of  his  spring- 
time? With  what  else  than  the  bread-cart  of  clever 
selfishness  would  you  replace  this  guiding  pole-star? 
Finally,  what  is  the  one  thing  needful  to  men  ?  Certainly 
not  the  strength  of  the  sacrifices  to  what  is  best ;  for  let 
a  god  but  once  appear  in  reality,  or,  as  in  France,  a 
goddess  (liberty),  and  man  willingly  frees  himself  of 
everything  human  which  the  divinity  does  not  require: 
but  man  needs  something  other  than  strength;  faith  in, 
and  contemplation  of,  a  Deity  who  merits  human  sacri- 
fices of  a  nobler  kind.  But  if  you  expel  that  ideal  from 
the  heart,  there  vanish  with  it  temple,  altar,  and  every- 
thing. 


TRUTHFULNESS.  299 

CHAPTER    II. 

TRUTHFULNESS. 
§  111. 

TRUTHFULNESS,  —  I  mean  the  fact  of  speaking 
truth  intentionally,  and  even  to  the  injury  of  self,  — 
is  less  a  branch  than  a  blossom  of  man's  moral  strength 
of  character.  Weaklings  must  lie,  hate  it  as  much  as 
they  may.  One  threatening  look  drives  them  into  the 
midst  of  sin's  net.  The  dijQTerence  between  the  present 
and  the  middle  age  consists  less  in  the  existence  of  injus- 
tice, cruelty,  and  lust,  —  for  these,  especially  the  last, 
were  abundant  enough  before  the  discovery  of  America, 
—  than  in  the  want  of  truthfulness.  The  first  sin  on  the 
earth  —  happily  the  Devil  was  guilty  of  it,  on  the  tree  of 
knowledge  —  was  a  lie ;  and  the  last  will  surely  be  a  lie 
too.  The  world  is  punished  for  the  increase  of  truths  by 
the  decrease  of  truthfulness. 

§  112. 

Lying,  that  devouring  cancer  of  the  inner  man,  is  more 
severely  judged  and  defined  by  the  feeling  of  nations 
than  by  philosophers.  The  Greeks,  who  suffered  their 
gods  to  commit  as  many  crimes  with  impunity  as  their 
present  representatives,  the  gods  of  the  earth,  do,  yet 
condemn  them  for  perjury  —  that  root  and  quintessence 
of  a  lie  —  to  pass  a  year  of  lifelessness  under  the 
ground  in  Tartarus,  and  then  to  endure  nine  years  of 
torments. 

The  ancient  Persian  taught  his  child  nothing  in  the 
whole  circle  of  morality  but  truthfulness.     The  gram- 


300  LEVANA. 

matic  resemblance  of  his  language  to  the  German  beauti- 
fully shows  also  the  moral  resemblance  of  the  people. 
Anton*  tells  us  that  lying  is  originally  derived  from  to 
he,  i.  e.  to  be  prostrate,  probably  in  reference  to  the  ab- 
ject slave  who  dare  raise  neither  body  nor  mind.  Lying 
and  stealing,  (which,  as  an  acted  lie,  deprives  of  honor, 
though  murder  does  not,)  and  a  box  in  the  ear,  which 
the  ancient  German  dreaded  more  than  a  wound,  are 
brought  into  close  connection  by  our  language  in  its 
proverbs :  and  our  near  relatives,  the  English,  know  of 
no  more  abusive  epithet  than  liar.  The  German  tourna- 
ments were  closed  to  the  har  as  well  as  to  the  murderer. 
I  grant,  however,  that  in  the  greatest  of  all  tournaments, 
war,  the  greatest  lying  opened  the  lists  of  knightly  exer- 
cise in  war  to  a  prince,  with  whom  no  true  treaty  or 
peace  could  be  made. 

Can  this  abhorrence  of  false  words  be  merely  grounded 
on  the  violation  of  mutual  rights  and  confidence,  and  the 
injury  arising  from  broken  contracts  ?  It  is  contradicted 
by  the  fact  that  we  more  readily  pardon  lying  actions  than 
lying  words.  Action,  mimicry,  and  silence  lie  far  oftener 
than  the  tongue,  which  men  endeavor  as  long  as  possible 
to  preserve  pure  from  the  hateful  perpetration  of  a  lie, 
the  plague-spot  of  the  inner  man.  Heavens  !  are  we  not 
already  accustomed,  without  knowing  it,  to  innumerable 
fictions  of  law  and  of  poetry,  —  to  political  secret  articles, 
mesne  tenures,  vice-men,  masters  of  ceremonies,  comedians, 
and  rehearsals  of  comedies,  false  hair,  false  teeth,  false 
calves,  and  many  other  things  of  a  similar  kind ;  and  yet 
are  we  thereby  in  the  smallest  degree  less  shocked  when 
a  man  utters  a  deliberate  lie?    What  deceptions  there  are 

*  This  is  more  evident  in  the  English  than  in  the  German,  where 
the  words  are  liigen  derived  from  Uegen. 


TRUTHFULNESS.  301 

everywhere,  from  the  otherwise  lie-hating  London,  where 
three  fourths  of  the  current  money  is  false,*  to  Pekin, 
where  wooden  hams  are  sold  wrapped  up  in  pig's-skin  ! 
Since  an  honorable  soldier  and  gentleman  is  less  ashamed 
of  a  fraud  and  a  bankmptcy  than  of  a  lie,  at  the  bare  re 
proach  of  which  he  will  shoot  himself,  —  and  since  men  of 
the  world,  and  even  moralists,  permit  themselves  ambiguity 
of  action  rather  than  an  actual  lie,  —  and  since,  finally,  no 
blush  is  caused  by  any  sin  so  burning  as  that  produced  by 
a  lie,  —  can  words  be  something  higher  than  deeds,  the 
tongue  than  the  hand  ?  These  questions  cannot  be  per- 
fectly answered  by  the  mimic  ambiguity  of  actions,  com- 
pared with  the  simplicity  of  speech ;  for  actions  are  not 
always  ambiguous,  and  men  will  often  consider  before 
speaking  decidedly,  when  they  would  not  before  acting. 
Men  are  not  ashamed  to  undermine  and  bear  ill-will 
towards  other  men,  but  they  are  ashamed  openly  to  tell 
a  he. 

§113. 

What  is  it  that  makes  it  so  unholy  ?  It  is  this :  two 
individual  beings  are  stationed  with  regard  to  each  other 
as  upon  different  islands,  and  locked  up  within  prison-bars 
of  the  bones,  and  behind  the  curtain  of  the  skin.  Mere 
motion  shows  me  only  life,  but  not  its  internal  cause.  The 
animated  eye  of  a  Raffaelle's  Madonna  often  speaks  to  us 
from  the  canvas,  which  yet  houses  no  mind  ;  wax  figures 
are  hollow ;  and  the  ape,  our  mocking  image,  is  dumb. 
In  what  glorified  form,  then,  does  the  human  soul  reveal 
itself?  In  speech  only;  in  reason,  thus  made  man;  in 
this  audible  freedom.  I  speak  of  universal  innate  lan- 
guage, without  which  all  its  peculiarities,  such  as  modes 
of  verbal  expression,  were  neither  comprehensible  noi 

♦  Ciolquhonn. 


302  LEVANA. 

possible.  Since  instinct  and  mechanism  can  imitate  all 
other  signs  of  life,  it  is  by  speech  only  that  the  freedom 
of  the  creative  thinker  in  a  free  world  of  thought  is  re- 
vealed to  another;  and  this  herald  and  ambassador  of 
freedom  lays  the  foundations  of  morality  by  announcing 
individuals,  like  kings,  to  one  another.  The  fetters  of  the 
tongue  are  the  fetters  of  the  soul ;  and  there  are  no  cus- 
toms, save  the  customs  of  language.  The  testament  of 
the  soul  is  opened  by  the  mouth,  and  its  last  will  made 
known.  It  is  by  the  present  conversion  of  mobile  speech 
into  quiet  writing  and  painting,  by  this  strict  imprison- 
ment of  the  breath  of  the  soul,  that  both  the  power  of 
language  and  the  blackness  of  a  lie  are  visibly  diminished. 
For,  since  everything  is  but  a  sign,  it  follows  that  every 
sign  can  be  again  signified  even  to  infinity. 

But  now  if  a  fellow-being,  another  living  soul,  comes  to 
me  and  utters  a  deliberate  lie,  how  annihilating!  His 
soul  has  fled  away  from  me,  and  left  but  its  fleshly  house 
behind  ;  what  he  then  says,  since  it  is  not  the  soul  which 
speaks,  is  as  meaningless  as  the  wind,  which,  with  all  its 
howling,  announces  no  pain.  A  word  often  effaces  or 
explains  an  action  ;  but  the  reverse  scarcely  ever  occurs. 
It  must  be  a  long  course  of  action  which  will  remove  the 
thorn  from  one  word,  or  restore  the  trusted  use  of  the 
tongue.  The  whole  enchanted  palace  of  a  man's  thoughts 
is  rendered  invisible  by  the  single  blast  of  a  lie,  for  one 
lie  is  the  mother  of  all  lies.  What  can  I  say  to  him  who 
is,  or  carries  about  with  him,  his  own  talking-machine, 
and  may  have  thoughts  quite  different  to  those  he  sounds 
on  his  machine  ?  Moreover,  he  gives  me,  what  is  no 
partial,  but  a  universal  injury,  —  instead  of  my  soul,  a 
machine,  —  instead  of  my  truths,  falsehoods  ;  and  breaks 
down  the  bridge  of  mind,  or  at  least  converts  it  into  a 


TRUTHFULNESS.  303 

bridge  which  he  can  let  down  for  himself,  but  draw  up 
against  others. 

§1U 
And  now  back  to  our  dear  children  !  During  the  first 
five  years  they  say  neither  what  is  true  nor  what  is  false, 
—  they  merely  talk.  Their  talking  is  thinking  aloud ; 
and  since  the  one  half  of  thought  is  frequently  a  yes,  and 
the  other  a  no,  and  both  escape  them  (though  not  us),  they 
seem  to  lie  when  they  are  merely  talking  to  themselves. 
Further:  at  first  they  find  great  pleasure  in  exercising 
their  new  art  of  speech,  and  so  they  often  talk  nonsense, 
only  for  the  sake  of  hearing  their  acquisitions  in  language. 
They  frequently  do  not  understand  some  word  that  you 
have  said,  —  little  children,  for  instance,  often  confuse  to- 
day, to-morrow,  yesterday,  as  weU  as  numbers  and  degrees 
of  comparison,  and  so  give  rather  a  mistaken  than  a  false 
reply.  Again,  they  use  their  tongues  more  in  sport  than 
earnest,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  long  discourses  they  hold 
with  their  puppets,  as  a  minister  or  an  author  does  with 
his ;  and  they  easily  apply  this  sportive  talking  to  living 
people.  Children  always  fly  to  the  warm,  sunny  side  of 
hope ;  if  the  bird  or  the  dog  has  gone  away,  they  will  say, 
without  any  further  reason,  it  will  come  back  again.  And, 
since  they  cannot  altogether  separate  their  hopes,  that  is, 
their  fancies,  from  copies  of  truths,  their  own  self-decep- 
tion assumes  the  appearance  of  a  lie.  For  instance,  a 
truth-speaking  little  girl  related  to  me  frequent  appear- 
ances of  the  infant  Christ,*  and  what  he  had  said,  done, 
&c.  It  is  worthy  of  consideration  whether  children, 
when   they  poetize  a  lie,  do   not   often   relate   remem- 

*  The  infant  Christ  is,  in  Germany,  feigned  to  be  the  sender  of  tiie 
presents  which  adorn  the  Christmas-tree. 


304  LEVANA. 

bered  dreams,  which  must  necessarily  be  confounded  by 
them  with  real  occuiTences.  To  this  class  belongs  that 
talkative  teasing  and  joking*  often  seen  in  eight  or 
ten  years  old  boys,  which  arises  from  superabundance 
of  animal  spirits. 

In  all  these  cases,  when  the  form  of  a  lie  is  not  to  be 
shown  in  any  dark  glass,  say  merely,  — "  Don't  make 
nonsense,  speak  seriously." 

Finally,  an  untruth  about  what  is  to  come  is  often  con- 
founded with  an  untruth  about  what  has  happened.  Now 
if,  in  the  case  of  grown-up  men,  we  do  not  consider  the 
breach  of  an  official  oath,  having  reference  to  the  future 
only,  equally  culpable  with  the  black  perjury  which  re- 
lates to  the  past,  we  should  in  a  still  greater  degree  in  the 
case  of  children,  before  whose  little  ken  time  and  space 
are  magnified,  and  to  whom  a  day  is  as  inscrutable  as  a 
year  to  us,  clearly  distinguish  between  the  untruthfulness 
of  promises  and  the  untruthfulness  of  statements.  Some- 
thing very  different,  and  much  worse,  is  the  narrative-lie, 
which  seeks  to  gain  some  future  thing  by  lying. 

Truthfulness,  which  would  offer  even  a  bloody  sacrifice 
to  its  word,  as  its  word,  is  a  godlike  blossom  on  an  earthly 
plant ;  therefore,  it  is  not  the  first,  but  the  last  virtue  in 
order  of  time.  The  simple  savage  is  full  of  deceit,  both 
in  words  and  actions  ;  the  peasant,  under  the  influence  of 
some  trifling  danger,  will  tell  a  lie  about  what  is  past ;  but 
he  considers  it  dishonorable  to  tell  a  prospective  lie,  and 
keeps  his  word.  And  yet  you  can  require  in  a  child, 
whom  you  have  yet  to  educate,  the  last  and  noblest  fruits 

*  For  the  true  liar  does  not  joke,  and  the  true  wit  does  not  lie,  from 
the  sharp  open  Swift  back  to  Erasmus,  who  even  experienced  a  phys- 
ical antipathy  to  a  liar,  as  also  to  fish.  —  Paravicini,  Stngularia  de 
Viri*  CXaris. 


TRUTHFULNESS.  305 

of  truth  ?  How  much  you  err  is  proved  by  the  fact,  that 
lying  children  —  all  other  circumstances  being  equal  — 
have  grown  up  into  truthful  men  :  I  appeal  to  the  Rous- 
seau's ribbon-lie  of  every  conscience. 

There  are,  however,  two  decided  lies  with  regard  to  the 
two  times  ;  —  no  other  lies  are  possible  than  either  those 
which  look  forward  to  the  future  or  back  to  the  past. 
The  first  is  seen  when  the  child  endeavors  to  secure  itself 
some  booty  by  lying  words  or  deeds ;  the  second,  when 
he  denies,  through  fear,  his  own  actions. 

What  is  to  be  done  in  both  these  circumstances  ? 

§  115. 

What  is  to  be  done  before  they  occur?  That  is  the 
question. 

The  child,  blinded,  and,  as  it  were,  imprisoned,  by  his 
own  existence,  acquires  his  first  knowledge  of  morality  by 
observing  others  ;  and  only  perceives  the  hatefulness  of  a 
heard  lie,  not  of  one  spoken  by  himself.  Show  him,  then, 
the  lofty  throne  of  truthfulness  in  others,  compared  with 
the  abyss  of  their  falsehood  ;  be  what  you  desire  him  to 
be  ;  and  frequently  repeat  that  you  do  even  the  most 
indifferent  things,  because  you  had  previously  said  you 
would.  It  has  a  powerful  effect  on  the  little  heart  if  he 
occasionally  hears  his  father,  who  seems  to  him  a  kind  of 
free  universal  monarch,  complain ;  —  but  mark,  it  must 
only  be  in  true  cases,  for  truthfulness  in  the  child  cannot 
grow  at  the  expense  of  truthfulness  in  the  parents :  that, 
for  instance,  he  would  rather  not  go  out  with  him,  but 
having  promised  to  do  so,  he  must  now  unwillingly  keep 
his  word. 

If  the  child  have  promised  something,  remind  him  fre- 
quently of  it  as  the  time  approaches,  but  without  using 

T 


3o6  LEVANA.  • 

other  words  than  "  you  said  so,"  and  at  last  compel  him 
to  the  performance.  But  if  he  have  done  something,  you 
cannot  be  too  sparing  in  your  inquiries,  which  may  easily 
become  so  painful.  The  younger  the  child  is  the  fewer 
questions  you  ought  to  ask,  the  more  ought  you  to  seem 
all-knowing  or  remain  ignorant.  Do  you  not  consider 
that  you  apply  a  fiery  trial,  such  as  Huss  and  other 
martyrs  have  endured,  to  children,  —  to  whom  a  threat- 
ening father  is  a  penal  judge,  a  prince,  and  a  fate,  his  rod 
a  Jove's  thunderbolt,  and  the  next  questioning  moment  an 
eternity  of  hellish  torments,  —  when,  by  your  concealed 
anger,  and  the  prospect  of  punishment  after  confession, 
you  place  them  in  the  dangerous  position  of  choosing 
whether  they  shall  obey  instinct  or  an  idea  ?  To  truth 
belongs  freedom  ;  the  criminal  stands  without  fetters  dur- 
ing trial ;  and  man,  the  reverse  of  Proteus,  speaks  the 
truth  when  free.  The  more  free  the  education,  the  more 
truthful  is  the  child.  All  truth-loving  ages  and  nations, 
from  the  German  to  the  British,  have  been  free  :  lying 
China  is  a  prison,  and  romanizare  (romancing)  meant 
lying  when  the  Romans  were  slaves. 

At  the  same  time  do  not  let  the  remission  of  punish- 
ment be  the  incitement  and  reward  of  truth ;  an  act  of 
indemnity,  which  can  as  little  make  the  child  good  and 
true,  as  escaped  suiFering  the  unpunished  thief.  If  you 
must  inquire,  use  affectionate  words,  and  apply  to  the  lie 
the  pain  you  would  spare  the  child. 

But  if  a  lie  be  proved  against  the  child,  solemnly  utter 
the  judgment  "  guilty  of  lying,"  with  a  shocked  tone  and 
look,  with  all  the  horror  due  to  this  sin  against  nature  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  inflict  the  punishment.  The  only 
punishments  I  would  permit  for  lying  are  such  as  affect 
the  honor,  and  can  be  removed  as  solemnly,  suddenly,  and 


TRUTHFULNESS.  307 

completely  as  inflicted,  so  as  not  to  lose  their  effect  by 
gradual  diminution.  The  Iroquois  blacken  the  faces  of 
those  who  celebrate  their  heroes  with  lying  songs.  The 
Siamese  sew  up  the  lips  of  lying  women,  as  if  they  were 
wounds.  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  the  blackenhig ; 
on  the  contrary,  I  have  myself  occasionally  punished  a 
lie  severely  by  marking  a  spot  of  ink  on  the  brow,  which 
was  not  to  be  washed  off  without  permission,  and  which 
eat  deeply  into  the  conscience.  But  I  am  more  in  favor 
of  the  Siamese  plan  of  closing  the  lips,  —  I  mean  of  forbid- 
ding speaking  to  those  who  have  spoken  wickedly.  The 
same  principle  which  led  the  ancient  Germans  to  cut  out 
the  tongues  of  the  Roman  advocates,  sends  the  misused 
member,  which  serves  the  mind  worse  than  the  stomach, 
into  the  convent  of  La  Trappe.  I  think  this  punishment 
which  petrifies  the  tongue,  as  Paul  did  the  serpent  at 
Malta,  is  juster,  lighter,  and  more  definite  than  that 
which  Rousseau  and  Kant  would  inflict  on  a  lying  child  ; 
namely,  not  to  believe  him  for  a  time,  which  only  means 
to  seem  not  to  beUeve  him.  For  in  this  case  the  judge 
himself  lies  during  the  punishment  for  lying  ;  and  will 
not  the  little  culprit  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  this  pre- 
tence by  his  consciousness  of  speaking  the  truth  ?  More- 
over, how  and  when  will  you  make  the  necessary  return 
from  disbelief  to  confidence  ?  At  the  same  time,  Kant's 
punishment  may  occasionally  have  a  beneficial  tendency 
in  the  case  of  grown-up  daughters. 

Never  tell  any  child  under  six  years  old  to  conceal 
anything,  even  though  it  were  a  pleasure  you  were  plan- 
ning for  some  one  you  love.  The  clear  sky  of  childlike 
open-heartedness  must  not  be  covered  even  by  the  morn- 
ing glow  of  shame  ;  and  your  instructions  will  soon  teach 
him  to  add  secrets  of  his  own  to  yours.     The  heroic 


3o8  LEVANA. 

virtue  of  silence  requires  for  its  practice  the  powers  of 
ripening  reason.  Reason  teaches  us  to  be  silent ;  the 
heart  teaches  us  to  speak. 

For  this  and  other  reasons  I  consider  it  wrong,  at 
least  for  the  first  five  years,  to  forbid  a  child  to  ask  for 
anything;  especially  if  the  mother  append  the  poison- 
ous sugar  of  a  promise  to  give  it  afterwards.  For,  are 
wMshes  sins?  or  is  the  confession  of  a  wish  a  sin? 
During  the  silence  attached  to  the  gift,  will  not  a  long- 
ing for  enjoyment  and  reward,  and  the  power  of  dis- 
simulation, be  maintained  and  fostered  ?  And  is  it  not 
much  easier  to  give  an  entire  refusal  after  the  short 
question,  than  after  the  long  waiting  ?  This  mistaken 
command  arises  from  the  maternal  inability  to  utter  an 
immediate  and  decisive  "  no." 

Do  not  despise  all  kinds  of  little  helps.  For  instance, 
do  not  press  the  child  for  an  immediate  answer ;  a  lie 
easily  escapes  from  haste,  and  must  then  be  supported 
by  another.  Give  him  a  little  time  for  reflection  before 
he  speak.  Further,  remember  in  your  most  indifferent 
promises  and  declarations  —  and  all  the  more  because 
they  are  indiff*erent  to  you  —  that  children  have  a  bet- 
ter memory  than  you  about  all  things,  but  especially 
for  and  against  you,  and  that  you  must  protect  them 
from  the  dangerous  appearance  of  your  own  innocent, 
over-hasty  untruthfulness. 

The  author  has  occasionally  asked  himself  whether 
children's  sense  of  truth  may  not  be  injured  by  the  acting 
of  charades  and  little  comedies.  Besides  the  necessary 
excitement  of  instant  creation,  children's  charades  have 
also  this  advantage  over  children's  comedies,  —  that  mere 
charades  are  only  a  higher  imitation  of  the  puppet 
games  which  children,  even  at  an  earlier  age,  played 


TRUTHFULNESS.  3O9 

extempore  with  their  dolls  and  their  companions,  with- 
out any  injury  to  truthfulness ;  as  if,  even  then,  they 
would  take  refuge  from  the  cold  winds  of  real  life 
behind  the  shelter  of  imaginary  life.  In  charades  the 
child  lives,  —  at  once  poet  and  player;  in  a  strange 
character,  it  is  true,  but  still  not  in  a  borrowed  one, 
and  uttering  the  words  prompted  by  the  eager  moment. 
In  plays  he  coldly  learns  by  heart  the  representation 
{simulatio)  of  a  character,  and  certain  words,  in  order 
afterwards  to  give  a  lively  representation  of  both.  Truth 
has  also  this  advantage  in  charades  ;  that  the  child  must, 
at  all  events,  reply  from  his  own  mind  to  the  changing 
questions  of  the  time  ;  whereas,  in  a  learnt  comedy,  he 
brings  with  him  every  answer,  prepared  for  weeks.  And 
since  even  great  actors  do  not  consider  the  advantage  to 
be  gained  by  pure,  universal  human  nature,  without 
regard  to  artistic  effect,  as  the  matter  of  chief  importance, 
we  should  exempt  childi'en  from  an  exercise  in  which 
the  advantage  is  more  doubtful  than  the  injury. 

Our  ancestors  magnified  every  lie  into  perjury,  by 
always  pointing  out  to  children  the  universal  presence 
of  God  :  and  why  should  not  this  warning,  which  converts 
every  promise  into  an  oath,  and  doubles  the  sin  while 
rendering  it  more  difficult  of  commission  to  a  conscience 
alive  to  the  Divinity,  be  still  held  up  to  children  ? 

Finally,  since  truthfulness,  as  a  conscious  virtue  and 
sacrifice,  is  the  blossom,  nay,  the  pollen,  of  the  whole 
moral  growth,  it  can  only  grow  with  its  growth,  and 
open  when  it  has  reached  its  height.  You  have  only 
to  keep  away  weeds  while  you  give  it  freedom,  save  it 
from  overpowering  temptations,  and  forbid  all  soul-bend- 
ing customs  (such  as  obliging  a  child  to  return  thanks 
for  a  whipping,  and  to  make  compliments  to  strangers). 


3IO  LEVANA. 


CHAPTER    III. 

EDUCATION    OF    THE.  AFFECTIONS. 

§  116. 

I  SAID,  in  the  hundred  and  third  section,  that  love 
is  the  second  hemisphere  of  the  moral  world,  that 
it  turns  to  what  is  external,  as  honor  does  to  what  is 
internal,  and  so  forth.  The  holy  essence  of  love  has 
been  fathomed  neither  by  the  fraternity  of  novelists, 
who,  like  selfish  women,  mingle  regard  to  self  with  the 
beloved  object,  nor  by  merely  intellectual  philosophers, 
who  view  its  depth  partly  as  an  instinct  utterly  without 
and  below  their  categorical  imperative,  (law  of  morals,) 
partly  as  mere  justice,  a  kind  of  rational  regard ;  to 
such  men  love  and  poetry  seem  a  pair  of  superfluous 
wings,  disfiguring  the  useful  arms  behind  which  they  are 
placed.  Only  Plato,  Hemsterhuis,  Jacobi,  Herder,  and 
a  few  like  them,  have  brought  to  the  love  of  wisdom 
(philosophy)  the  wisdom  of  love.  He  who  called  love 
the  positive  law  of  morality  will,  at  least,  not  be  con- 
demned by  one  great  man,  —  by  Jesus  Christ,  the  founder 
of  the  first  religion  of  love,  in  the  midst  of  a  Judaism 
inimical  to  all  other  nations,  and  an  age  inimical  to  phi- 
lanthropy. But  the  essence  of  love  —  this  all-sustaining 
deity,  the  true  divine  unity  of  all,  in  which  the  individual 
soul  feels  more  than  it  comprehends  —  demands  another 
place  for  examination. 

§  117. 

Love  is  an  innate,  but  variously  apportioned,  power 
and  warmth  of  the  heart ;    there  are  cold  and  warm- 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    AFFECTIONS.        3U 

blooded  souls  as  well  as  bodies.  Many  are  bom  knights 
of  the  Love  of  their  Neighbor,*  as  Montaigne ;  many- 
are  armed  neutrals  against  humanity.  Whether  this 
power  be  a  holy,  burning  bush,  or  only  a  single  kindling 
spark,  education  must  care  for  it  in  two  ways,  —  by  pro- 
tecting and  by  developing  it. 

By  protecting  it  I  mean  this.  The  child  begins  with 
selfishness,  which  affects  us  as  little  as  that  of  animals ; 
because  the  soul,  darkly  hidden  under  its  various  wants, 
cannot  yet  feel  its  way  to  another,  but  incorporates 
others,  so  to  speak,  with  itself.  In  so  far  the  child  finds 
nothing  lifeless  without,  any  more  than  within,  itself;  it 
spreads  its  soul  as  a  universal  soul  over  everything.  A 
little  girl  of  two  years  old  —  and  all  children  do  the 
same  —  personified  other  things  than  those  I  mentioned 
in  the  earher  part  of  this  work :  she  said,  for  instance, 
of  the  door  which  was  opened,  "  It  wants  to  go  out."  — 
"  I  will  kiss  my  hand  to  the  spring."  — "  Is  the  moon 
good  ?  and  does  it  never  cry  ?  "  This  animation  of  all 
lifeless  things,  which  is  pecuhar  to  children,  is  another 
reason  why  we  should  restrain  them  from  ever  harshly 
alluding  to  an  inanimate  object 

§  118. 

Love  in  the  child,  as  in  the  animal,  exists  as  an 
instinct ;  and  this  central  fire  frequently,  but  not  always, 
breaks  through  its  outer  crust  in  the  form  of  compassion. 
A  child  is  often  indifferent,  not  merely  to  the  sufferings 
of  animals,  and  to  those  of  persons  unconnected  with 
himself,  (except  when  the  cry  of  pain  finds  an  echo  in 
his  own  heart,)  but  even  to  those  of  relatives.     Inno- 

*  The  order  of  knighthood  to  which  I  allude  was  founded  by  the 
Queen  of  Charles  III.  of  Spain. 


312  LEVANA. 

cent  children  will  frequently  find  pleasure  in  standing 
on  the  place  where  another  is  to  be  punished.  A  sec- 
ond observation,  founded  on  experience,  is,  that  boys, 
when  approaching  near  to  manhood,  show  the  least  af- 
fection, the  most  love  of  teasing,  the  greatest  destructive- 
ness,  the  most  selfishness  and  cold-heai-tedness ;  just  as 
the  coldness  of  the  night  increases  twofold  shortly  before 
the  rising  of  the  sun. 

But  the  sun  comes,  and  warms  the  world ;  the  super- 
abundance of  power  becomes  love ;  the  strong  stem 
encloses  and  protects  the  pith ;  the  teasing  lad  becomes 
the  affectionate  young  man.  The  other  observation  of 
childish  heartlessness,  recorded  above,  vanishes  in  the 
very  opposite  quality  of  tenderness,  so  soon  as  the  visi- 
ble pain  of  the  culprit,  by  its  increase,  affects  the  child ; 
every  fresh  wound  makes  a  tearful  eye. 

Consequently,  there  is  not  so  much  need  to  ingraft 
the  buds  of  affection,  as  to  remove'  the  moss  and  briers 
of  selfishness  which  hide  them  from  the  sun.  Every- 
body would  gladly  show  affection,  might  he,  or  dared  he, 
but  do  it.  Wherever  a  pulse  beats,  a  heart  reposes  in 
the  background ;  if  there  be  but  some  little  impulse 
towards  love,  the  whole  essence  of  love  lies  behind  it. 

But  you  plant  the  selfiish  weed,  instead  of  eradicating 
it,  if,  in  the  presence  of  children,  you  pass  contemptuous, 
though  just,  judgments  on  your  neighbors,  or  even  your 
town.  How  else  can  the  child  learn  to  love  the  world, 
than  by  learning  to  love  what  is  daily  around  him  ?  And 
can  we  love  what  we  despise  ?  Or  will  your  sermons 
warm  him  into  love  for  the  objects  you  have  taught  him 
to  scorn?  Since  every  distinction  of  your  children 
above  their  neighbors,  whether  it  consists  in  position, 
behavior,   or  even    more  brilliant    instruction,   reminds 


EDUCATION  OF  THE  AFFECTIONS.   313 

them  of  themselves  at  the  expense  of  others,  this  dis- 
tinction very  soon  and  very  easily  passes  into  hatred. 
Never  say  to  your  children  that  other  children  are  ill 
brought  up.  I  have  frequently  seen  whole  families  con- 
verted, by  similar  thoughtless  and  perverse  actions,  into 
watchful  and  blockading  troops  of  hatred ;  whole  houses 
built  full  of  pouting-comers,  where  every  child,  full  of 
itself,  regarded  its  own  demands  as  the  weights,  those  of 
others  as  the  goods  to  be  weighed,  and  expected  uni- 
versal love  and  admiration.  If  a  large  town  have  the 
injurious  effect  on  children's  hearts  of  compelling  them 
to  assume  the  neutrality  of  great  people,  because  so  many 
of  whom  they  are  ignorant,  and  to  whom  they  are  indif- 
ferent, constantly  pass  before  them,  much  more  must 
a  village  harm  them,  if  they  hate  and  despise  as  many 
people  as  they  know,  that  is  to  say,  everybody. 

The  simple  command,  "  Forgive  the  sinner,"  means, 
with  children,  Do  not  regard  him  as  one :  you  will  suc- 
ceed better  if  you  teach  them  to  distinguish  the  guilty 
accomplice,  —  self,  from  its  stains ;  to  judge  the  deed, 
not  the  doer ;  in  order,  especially,  by  the  comparison  of 
things  and  rights,  to  prevent,  or  to  exalt,  the  comparison 
of  persons.  Praise  the  action,  not  the  child.  Parents 
mention  their  children  too  often  by  name.  Do  not  say, 
<*  Ah,  the  good  little  Louisa ! "  but  say,  "  That  is  good,'* 
—  or,  at  most,  "  You  are  as  good  as  Mary." 

§  119. 

But  while  setting  forth  the  repression  of  selfishness  as 
the  one  thing  needful  for  exciting  kindliness  to  others,  we 
must  observe  —  as  is  just  —  that  love  requires  nothing, 
save  not  to  be  obstructed.  This  leads  us  to  the  second 
means  of  maintaining  and  exciting  love :  it  is  this,  — 
14 


314  LEVANA. 

place  another  being  in  sufficiently  close  and  living  con^ 
tact  with  your  child,  and  he  will  love  it ;  because  man  is 
so  good,  that  the  Devil,  so  to  speak,  has  only  carved  and 
placed  a  black  frame  round  the  divine  image.  The  stem 
of  the  individual  heart  nourishes  with  the  same  sap  its 
own  branches  and  those  which  are  ingrafted  on  it. 

The  means  of  exciting  love  consist  in  identifying  the 
child,  as  it  were,  with  the  life  of  others,  —  and  in  rever- 
ence for  life  under  every  form. 

Concerning  this  transposition  into  extraneous  life,  by 
which  alone  the  goodness  of  our  nature  can  unfold  all 
its  love,  little  needs  here  be  printed,  because  I  have 
already  printed  much  about  it.*  Individuals,  yea,  whole 
nations,  have  often  died  without  having  once  even  thought 
of  themselves  in  any  other  position  than  their  own  ;  how 
difficult,  then,  must  it  be  for  the  child  to  place  himself  in 
the  position  of  others  !  Man  usually  opens  himself  to 
the  reception  of  another's  nature  only,  when,  in  the  con- 
test between  two  other  persons,  he  must  transpose  him- 
self from  the  one  into  the  other ;  but  not,  when  he  is 
a  party  concerned  in  the  contest,  by  placing  himself  in 
the  position  of  his  opponent.  Moreover,  this  represent- 
ative method  of  viewing  our  neighbor  is  a  kind  of 
intuition,  and,  consequently,  not  always  in  our  own  power. 
I  do  not  attempt  to  decide  whether,  possibly,  older  chil- 
dren may  not  be  led  to  attain  this  intuitive  perception 
at  an  earher  period  than  they  else  would,  by  certain 
games  ;  where  one  child,  for  instance,  assumed  the  name, 
and  imitated  the  actions,  of  another ;  or,  by  colored  pic- 
tures, calling  to  mind  similar  situations.  But  there  is 
something  else  which  may  be  done  to  attain  this  end, 
with  better  hope  of  success. 

*  In  the  Life  of  Siebenkas,  Book  I. 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    AFFECTIONS.        315 

§120. 

It  is  this:  teach  a  child  to  consider  all  animal  life 
sacred,  —  in  short,  give  him  the  heart  of  a  Hindoo,  not 
the  heart  of  a  Cartesian  philosopher. 

I  here  speak  of  something  higher  than  compassion  for 
animals,  though  of  that  also.  Why  has  it  been  long  re- 
marked that  children's  cruelty  to  animals  predicts  cruelty 
to  men,  as  the  Old-Testament  sacrifices  of  beasts  fore- 
shadowed the  New-Testament  s(icrifice  of  a  man  ?  It  is 
certain  that,  unless  associated  with  other  things,  the  little 
human  being  can  only  sympathize  with  those  sufferings 
which  speak  in  tones  similar  to  his  own.  Consequently, 
the  unusual  cry  of  a  tortured  animal  sounds  to  him  only 
like  the  strange  and  amusing  howl  of  the  inanimate  wind; 
but,  as  he  sees  hfe  and  voluntary  motion,  and  even  attrib- 
utes to  them  inanimate  forms,  he  sins  against  life  when 
he  separates  them  as  though  they  were  but  machinery. 
Life  itself  should  be  sacred ;  every  life,  irrational  as  well 
as  any  other.  And  does  the  child,  in  fact,  know  of  differ- 
ent kinds  of  hfe  ?  Or  is  the  heart  beating  under  bristles, 
feathers,  or  hard  wing-covers,  therefore  any  the  less  a 
heart  ? 

Permit  me  a  few  words  about  the  love  of  animals,  and 
universal  reverence  for  Ufe  ! 

Once,  when  man,  a  new  and  fresh  creature,  lived  in  the 
full  world  where  one  stream  flows  into  another,  he  recog- 
nized in  everything  the  universal  life  of  the  Godhead, 
resembling  an  infinite  tree  of  life,  which  spreads  the  low- 
est insects,  like  roots,  into  the  earth  and  sea,  stands  firm 
and  strong  with  a  trunk  of  huge  powerful  beasts,  shoots 
into  the  air  with  boughs  full  of  waving  leaves,  and  finally 
puts  forth  men  —  its  tender  blossoms  —  towards  the  sky. 
Then  had  not  arisen  that  stupid   human  egotism  which 


3l6  LEVANA. 

thinks  that  the  whole  animal  kingdom,  the  peopled  seas 
and  deserts  full  of  all  their  various  happy  living  creatures, 
were  given  by  God  to  men  as  tributary  beasts,  Michael- 
mas geese  and  tithe  hens  for  their  stomachs.  The  earth, 
Kepler's  animal,  had  not  yet  become  the  metallic  cow 
and  the  Balaam's  ass  of  little  man.  But  the  old  van- 
ished world,  —  some  remnants  of  which  are  yet  visible  in 
Eastern  India,  —  finding  more  life  and  more  divinity  in 
the  flower,  fast  chained  by  its  roots,  than  we  now  do  in 
the  free-moving  beast,  worshipped,  in  animal  arabesques, 
in  the  living,  moving,  distorted  images  of  the  human  form, 
the  infinite  Raflfaelle  who  perfected  man.  The  forms  of 
animals  repulsive  to  us  revealed  to  them  the  veil  of  Isis, 
or  the  Moses'  covering  of  a  deity.  Hence  the  lower,  but 
wonderful,  beast  *  was  worshipped  much  sooner  than  the 
human  being;  hence  the  Egyptians  crowned  human  bodies 
with  the  heads  of  animals.  The  more  childlike,  simple, 
and  pious  a  nation,  the  greater  its  love  of  animals.  In 
Surat  there  is  an  hospital  for  animals.  The  hero  who 
had  taken  Nineveh,  saved  it  from  destruction,  because  of 
the  multitude  of  its  animals.  The  mercifulness  of  the 
Jews  t  towards  animals  was  rewarded  with  long  hfe. 
Even  the  punishment  of  animals,  if  they  had  participated 
with  men  in  any  crime,  the  thunders  of  excommunication 
hurled  against  them,  and  the  weighing  of  their  designs  J 
in  inflicting  punishment,  show  the  early  regard  felt  for 
these  eighth  parts  and  likenesses  of  man.  The  Indian 
adoration  of  vegetable  life   passed  into   Greece,  under 

*  Vide  Meiners. 

t  Micha^lis,  Mosaic  law,  v-  iii. 

X  An  ox  which,  among  the  Jews  (according  to  the  Gemara),  was 
put  to  death  for  killing  a  Jew,  but  left  unhurt  after  killing  three 
heathens,  was  equally  unpunished  if  he  aimed  at  goring  a  heathen,  but 
killed  a  Jew.  —  Mischna,  6.    Bafa  kama,  c.  4. 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    AFFECTIONS.        317 

the  form  of  Hamadryads  and  other  deities  dwelhng  in 
trees,  and  into  the  north  under  the  form  of  punishment  to 
all  who  injured  trees. 

I  have  often  pictured  to  myself  situations  which  would 
remove  the  common  daily  view  of  animals,  which,  like 
misshapen  human  bodies,  have  fallen  on  to  our  globe 
from  other  worlds  producing  different  forms.  For  in- 
stance ;  I  have  fancied  an  uninhabited  island,  on  which 
one  man,  nourished  only  by  the  bread-fruit-tree,  had 
seen  no  living  thing,  nothing  but  waves  and  sky  and 
his  own  reflection  in  the  water,  and  from  which  he  was 
suddenly  transported  to  a  country  peopled  with  animated 
beings. 

What  an  enchanted  island  full  of  embodied  sprites  and 
fairies !  To  the  islander,  who  knows  no  other  form  than 
his  own,  a  hairy  monkey  grinning  at  him  from  a  bough 
would  seem  a  wicked  spirit,  or  a  misshapen  man.  The 
elephant  approaches,  —  a  shapeless  living  mass,  a  whole 
family  compressed  into  one  huge  two-eyed  body,  —  a 
walking  island  of  flesh :  the  lion  comes  like  anger :  the 
horse  flies  like  victorious  pride :  little  mad  sprites,  red, 
green,  yellow,  and  six-footed,  flutter  about  the  island.  A 
glorious  wonder  drops  from  the  clouds,  in  which  the  two 
strong  useful  human  arms  are  changed  into  burnished 
gold  hair  or  feathers,  and  its  lips  drawn  out  into  a  horn. 
Gray,  shapeless  substances,  with  scarce  formed  limbs, 
swim  in  the  waters :  yellow  creatures,  like  the  masks  of 
the  furies,  crawl  about  in  the  marshes :  a  single  long, 
smooth  limb  creeps  up  and  pricks  the  wicked  spirit  on 
the  bough,  and  he  falls  down :  and  then,  when  these 
strange  dream-like  figures  began  to  speak  each  the  lan- 
guage of  an  unknown  world,  —  as  we  might  suppose  the 
various  nations  of  its  planets  assembled  in  the  market- 


3l8  LEVANA. 

place  of  their  sun,  —  humming,  screaming,  howling, 
laughing,  —  there,  on  the  bough  of  a  tree,  sweet  sounds, 
from  heaven,  at  its  root  wrathful  hissings  from  Erebus : 
and  then  the  battles  and  struggles  of  these  animals,  the 
injuries  inflicted  on  them  by  each  other,  and  yet  their 
continued  existence :  and,  finally,  this  mingled,  fluttering, 
hurting,  killing,  caressing,  reproducing  life  becomes  an 
infinite  breath  of  life,  wherein  the  individual  life  flies  like 
a  tiny  zephyrette  ....  The  one  human  soul  forgets  in 
itself  the  human  race  of  the  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future,  and  places  itself  as  the  first  figure  before  all 
others.  How  much  more  does  it  forget  the  inferior  race 
of  animals,  the  mouches  volantes  before  an  angel's  eyes ! 

The  so-called  instinct  of  animals  —  this  ass  which  per- 
ceives the  angel's  presence  sooner  than  the  prophet  — 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  the  greatest  miracle  of  creation, 
and  also  as  the  key  and  index  to  all  other  miracles  ;  in  so 
much  as  the  riddle  of  the  universe  resembles  those  riddles 
which  both  describe  the  riddle  and  signify  it.  Animals 
should  be  rendered  familiar  to  children  in  every  possible 
way ;  for  instance,  by  representing  them  as  an  anagram 
of  a  human  being :  thus  the  poor  dog  may  be  regarded  as 
an  old  hairy  man,  whose  mouth  has  become  blackened 
and  elongated,  his  ears  pulled  out,  long  nails  appended  to 
his  shaggy  paws,  and  so  forth.  Little  animals  must  be 
brought  nearer  to  the  eye  and  heart  by  means  of  a  mag- 
fying-glass.  Thus  we  may  become  the  friends  of  the 
denizens  of  a  leaf.  The  prejudice  which  values  life  by 
the  yard  —  why,  then,  are  not  elephants  and  whales 
ranked  higher  than  ourselves  ?  —  disappears  by  the  con- 
templation of  the  infinity  which  is  the  same  in  every 
living  creature,  and,  like  an  infinite  series  in  numbers,  is 
increased  by  no  finite  additions;  which  is  not  affected, 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    AFFECTIONS.        319 

for  instance,  by  the  two  million  joints  of  a  centipede,  or 
the  many  thousand  muscles  of  the  willow-caterpillar. 
"  How  you  would  take  care  of  a  butterfly  as  big  as  au 
eagle,  or  of  a  grasshopper  as  large  as  a  horse  !  And  are 
not  you  little  too  ?  "     Speak  thus  to  the  child ! 

Leibnitz  replaced  a  little  insect  which  he  had  exam- 
ined for  a  long  time  uninjured  on  its  leaf:  be  this  a  com- 
mand for  a  child.  The  Stoic  school  declared,  that  a  man 
who  killed  a  fowl  without  any  reason  would  just  as  readily 
kill  his  father:  and  the  Egyptian  priest  considered  it 
impious  to  destroy  any  animal  except  for  sacrifice. 
These  embody  all  the  commandments  of  regard  for  life. 
Let  animals  be  put  to  death  only  from  necessity,  as  sacri- 
fices, accidentally,  hastily,  involuntarily,  defensively.  If 
the  long  observation  of  some  animal,  —  say  a  frog,  —  of 
its  breathing,  jumping,  mode  of  life,  and  agonies,  have 
converted  this  little  animal,  previously  indifferent  to  the 
child,  into  a  really  living  thing,  he  would  by  killing  it 
destroy  with  its  life  his  reverence  for  all  life.  Hence  no 
domestic  animal,  a  sheep,  a  cow,  should  ever  be  killed  in 
a  child's  presence ;  at  all  events,  if  his  rising  love  of  ani- 
mals is  to  be  encouraged,  instead  of  repressed  (as  some 
nations  have  been  led  to  eat  men  from  eating  monkeys)  ; 
the  hard  necessity  of  the  case,  the  careful  tending  pre- 
viously, and  the  sudden,  easy  death,  must  be  cast  as  a  veil 
of  darkness  over  the  slaughtering  hand.  Even  a  hunter 
should  never  punish  his  hounds  with  true  hunter's  cruelty 
before  a  child,  especially,  because  their  cries  express  their 
pain  so  clearly.  Cooks  say  you  should  show  no  pity  in 
killing  an  animal,  for  else  it  dies  harder :  this  superstition 
at  once  reveals  and  hides  the  true  woman's  sympathy, 
which  it  forbids. 

To  the  child's  eye,  admit  all  living  things  into  the 


320  LEVANA. 

human  family ;  so  the  greater  reveals  to  him  the  less. 
Breathe  a  living  soul  into  everything ;  and  even  describe 
the  lily,  which  he  wantonly  tears  from  its  organic  exist- 
ence, as  the  daughter  of  a  fair  mother  who  stands  in  the 
bed  and  nourishes  her  little  white  child  with  sap  and  dew. 

I  do  not  refer  to  any  mere  empty  exercise  of  compas- 
sion in  the  school  of  others'  sufferings,  but  to  an  exercise 
of  religion  in  the  consecration  of  life,  of  the  deity  ever 
present  in  the  trees  and  in  the  human  brain.  The  love 
of  animals,  like  maternal  love,  arises  from  no  expectation 
of  reciprocated  advantage,  still  less  from  selfishness,  and 
has  the  further  advantage  of  always  finding  an  object  on 
which  to  manifest  itself. 

Ph!  the  beautiful  time  will,  must  come,  when  the 
beast-loving  Brahmins  shall  dwell  in  the  cold  north  and 
make  it  warm  ;  when  the  heart,  having  rejected  its  worst 
and  cruellest  sins,  shall  also  lay  aside  those  which  slowly 
poison  it ;  when  man,  who  now  honors  the  multiform  part 
of-  humanity,  shall  also  begin  to  spare,  and  finally  to  pro- 
tect, in  the  present,  the  animated  ascending  and  descend- 
ing scale  of  living  creatures,  so  as  no  more  to  offer  to  the 
Great  First  Cause  the  hateful  sight  of,  it  is  true,  thickly 
veiled,  but  wide-extended,  animal  suffering.  And  where- 
fore must  such  times  come  ?  Because  worse  times  have 
passed  away :  time  carries  away  the  national  debts 
(mostly  bloody  debts)  of  humanity :  strand-right  is  now 
strand- wrong ;  the  traffic  in  negroes  is  gradually  becom- 
ing unlawful.  Only  the  toughest,  harshest  barbarism  of 
past  ages  —  war  —  remains  yet  to  be  vanquished  by  our 
innate  anti-barbarism. 

^  121. 
The  third  love-potion,  like  the  third  degree  of  com- 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    AFFECTIONS.        32I 

parison  which  admits  of  no  more,  is  love  for  love.  If 
love  be  the  highest,  what  further  can  it  seek  than  itself, 
the  highest?  A  heart  can  only  be  held  by  a  heart, 
the  fairest  setting  of  the  loveliest  jewel.  Only  the 
tumult  and  confusion  in  the  nest  of  self  can  so  darken 
us  that  we  value  pure  love  for  another  less  than  that 
for  ourselves. 

But  do  not  attempt  to  found  this  love  in  children  by 
caresses,  the  thirsty  springs  of  love.  These  soon  both 
grow  cold  and  make  cold.  I  have  often  seen  children, 
especially  young  ones,  suddenly  start  away  from  the 
caresses  of  love  to  the  quietest  observation  of  some  mere 
trifle,  just  like  the  old  epic  poets  of  early  nations  in  their 
descriptions.  In  grown-up  persons,  that  would  betray  a 
withered  heart  which  in  children  only  shows  that  its  buds 
are  still  closed. 

You  reveal  the  form  of  love  to  a  child  less  by  self- 
sacrificing  actions  —  for  these  he,  as  yet  unreasoning  and 
selfish,  does  not  regard  —  than  by  the  mother  tongue  of 
love,  affectionate  words  and  looks.  Love,  to  appear  un- 
troubled, must  be  embodied  in  nothing  save  the  tender 
mimicry  taught  by  Nature  herself:  a  look,  a  word,  ex- 
presses it  directly,  a  gift  only  indirectly,  by  translation. 
And  just  so  in  marriage  :  love  is  not  preserved  by  gifts, 
pleasures,  and  sacrifices,  whose  influence  soon  disappears, 
but  by  words  and  looks  of  love.  Moreover,  children 
manifest  more  love  towards  present-giving  strangers  than 
to  present-giving  parents ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  not  so 
much  to  caressing  strangers  as  to  caressing  parents. 

Let  the  child  occasionally  see  the  fiery  pillar  of  love 

move   before   sti-angers.     Contemplation   of  the  mutual 

love  of  others  sanctifies  the  beholder,  because  it  cannot  be 

accompanied  by  selfish  desires.     But  there  is  one  evil 

14*  u 


322  LEVANA. 

attending  this ;  namely,  that  the  undeveloped  hearts  of 
children  either  behold  the  altar-flame  of  others'  love  with 
indiflference,  or  frequently,  if  their  parents  kindle  it,  even 
with  jealousy.  But  this  only  teaches  us  that  in  educa- 
tion, as  well  as  in  art,  every  violent  expression,  even  of 
what  is  most  excellent,  must  be  shunned  (because  the 
injudicious  excess  makes  a  durable  impression,  but  the 
beautiful  fugitive  idea  is  lost),  and  that  quietness  and 
gentleness  reflect  the  affectionate  heart  most  clearly. 
yAnd  I  can  assure  brides,  and  still  more  certainly  bride- 
/  grooms,  that  they  will  only  find  the  children  of  affectionate 
parents  affectionate ;  and  especially  that  a  kirjd  or  an 
unkind  father  propagates  love  or  hatred  in  his  children. 

If  love  were  not  natural  to  us  we  could  never  hate. 
It  is  true  that  in  us,  as  in  other  animals,  hate  manifests 
itself  earlier,  and  at  first  more  powerfully  than  love. 
This  may  in  part  be  thus  accounted  for  :  in  attraction  or 
resemblance  some  portion  of  another's  excellence  is  lost 
to  sight  by  its  mixture  with  our  own,  whereas  the  repul- 
sion of  what  is  dissimilar  at  once  markedly  separates  our 
good  from  others'  evil  qualities ;  the  heart,  full  of  ideal 
light,  feels  the  cold  shadow  of  another's  worthlessness 
more  sensibly  than  the  light  which  is  lost  in  the  blaze 
of  his  own.  But  if  love  is  innate,  and  if  the  heart  is, 
as  Descartes  calls  the  earth,  an  incrusted  sun  {soleil 
encroute),  you  have  but  to  break  away  the  crust,  and  the 
glowing  warmth  is  there.  In  other  words,  let  the  child 
learn  to  know  love  by  his  own  actions,  as  reversedly,  to 
understand  your  actions  by  love ;  that  is  to  say,  let  him  do 
something  for  you  so  that  he  may  love  something ;  for  in 
children  action  awakens  desire,  though  the  opposite  is  the 
case  with  men. 

You  may  teach  a  higher  than  Ovid's  Art  of  Love,  by 


EDUCATION    OF    THE    AFFECTIONS.        323 

requesting  your  child  to  do  something  without  command- 
ing, or  rewarding  performance,  or  punishing  neglect; 
only  depict  beforehand,  if  it  is  for  another,  or  afterwards 
if  for  yourself,  the  pleasure  which  the  little  actor's  atten- 
tion to  your  wish  affords.  You  excite  the  benevolence  of 
children  less  by  pictures  of  people's  necessities  than  of  the 
joy  produced  by  relieving  them.  For  the  little  heart 
conceals  so  great  a  treasure  of  love,  that  he  is  less  defi- 
cient in  willingness  to  make  sacrifices  than  in  the  cer- 
tainty that  they  would  give  pleasure.  Hence,  when 
children  have  once  begun  to  make  presents  they  would 
never  cease  giving.  The  parents  may  give  them  the 
reward  of  certain  happiness  by  a  gladly  praising  ap- 
proval ;  an  educational  lever  whose  power  has  not  been 
sufl&ciently  estimated.  For  children,  accustomed  only  to 
parental  bidding  and  forbidding,  are  made  happy  by  per- 
mission to  do  some  extra  service,  and  by  the  recognition 
of  their  having  done  it.  This  affectionate  acknowledg- 
ment of  pleasure  renders  them  neither  vain  nor  empty, 
but  full;  not  proud,  but  warm. 

"  It  does  the  poor  man,  or  dog,  or  whatever  it  may  be, 
good,  or  harm."  These  few  words,  said  in  a  proper  tone 
of  voice,  are  worth  a  whole  sermon  :  and  fie  !  said  to  a 
girl,  will  abundantly  fill  the  place  of  half  a  volume  of 
Ehrenberg's  Lectures  to  the  female  sex. 

Moreover,  the  author  does  not  attempt  to  hide  from 
the  police,  that,  in  the  presence  of  his  children,  he  has 
frequently  given  to  beggars ;  first,  because  the  appear- 
ance of  cruelty  cannot  be  removed  by  any  political  rea- 
sons, nor  is  attempted  to  be ;  and,  secondly,  because  a 
child's  heart,  excited  by  compassion  for  suffering,  should 
not  be  chilled. 

Yet  a  few  fragments  within   the  fragment !    Do  not 


324  LEVANA. 

apprehend  too  great  danger  to  the  affections  from  chil- 
/  dren's  quarrels.  The  circumscribed  heart  of  children, 
their  incapacity  to  place  themselves  in  another's  position, 
and  their  Adam-like  innocence  of  belief  that  the  whole 
world  is  made  for  them,  not  they  for  the  world  ;  all  these 
things  combine  to  raise  the  inflated  bubbles  which  soon 
break  of  themselves.  They  may  speak  harshly,  or  even 
fly  into  a  passion,  with  one  another,  but  must  not  continue 
it !  You  must  do  many  more  things  to  be  hated  than  to 
be  loved  by  children :  hated  parents  must  themselves 
have  hated  for  a  long  time.  Advancing  years  rarely 
awaken  a  repressed  or  dormant  love ;  the  individual's 
own  selfishness  doubles  that  of  others,  and  this  again 
redoubles  that ;  and  so  layer  upon  layer  of  ice  is  frozen. 
You  falsify  love  by  commanding  its  outward  expression ; 
—  kissing  the  hand,  for  instance.  Such  things,  unlike 
kind  actions,  are  not  the  causes,  but  only  the  effects,  of 
love.  Do  not  in  any  instance  require  love :  among 
grown-up  persons  would  a  declaration  of  affection,  if 
commanded  and  prescribed  by  the  highest  authorities,  be 
well  received  ?  It  may  be  again  repeated,  without  de- 
serving blame,  that  the  quickest  alternation  between  pun- 
ishment or  refusal  and  previous  love  is  the  true,  though 
(to  the  fair  sex)  a  difficult  art  of  educating  the  affections. 
No  love  is  sweeter  than  that  which  follows  severity ;  so 
from  the  bitter  olive  is  sweet,  soft  oil  expressed. 

And,  finally,  ye  parents,  teach  to  love,  and  you  will 
need  no  ten  commandments  ;  teach  to  love,  and  a  rich, 
winning  life  is  opened  to  your  child :  for  man  (if  this 
siinile  be  permitted)  resembles  Austria,  which  increases 
its  territory  by  marriage,  but  loses  its  acquisitions  by  war : 
teach  to  love,  in  this  age,  which  is  the  winter  of  time,  and 
which  can  more  easily  conquer  everything  than  a  heart 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       325 

by  a  heart ;  teach  to  love,  so  that  when  your  eyes  are  old, 
and  then*  sense  almost  extinguished,  you  may  yet  find 
round  your  sick-couch  and  dying-bed  no  greedy,  covetous 
looks,  but  anxious  weeping  eyes,  which  strive  to  warm 
your  freezing  hfe,  and  hghten  the  •  darkness  of  your  last 
hour  by  thanks  for  their  first :  teach  to  love,  I  repeat ; 
that  means,  —  do  you   love  ! 


CHAPTER   IV. 

SUPPLEMENTARY  APPENDIX  TO  MORAL  EDUCATION. 

§  122. 

WHAT  is  the  third  which  unites  love  and  honor, 
which  does  not  suffer  love  weakly  to  sacrifice  the 
sacred  rights  of  the  individual  soul,  nor  honor  to  disre- 
gard that  of  others  in  the  cold  contemplation  of  its  own  ? 
—  Religion. 

Since  every  distinguishing  quality  is  again  subdivided, 
we  find  that  the  natural  distinctions  of  the  sexes,  the  one 
inclining  more  to  honor,  the  other  to  love,  are  repeated  in 
the  same  sex.  This  is  a  very  important  point  in  female 
education.  One  girl  is  all  quickness  of  perception  and 
action,  full  of  truthfulness  and  impatience,  her  personal 
and  her  public  honor  is  ever  before  her  eyes,  —  forgiving 
only  her  own  severity,  not  that  of  others,  but  even  that, 
more  readily  than  any  unworthy  attack  on  her  honor,  — 
reflecting  on  her  own  worth  rather  than  duly  weighing  it, 
placing  justice  higher  than  love,  and  so  forth.  Another 
girl  is  full  of  affection,  often  even  to  the  prejudice  of  her 


326  LEVANA. 

honor,  desirous  of  approbation,  not  proud,  less  obedient  to 
the  dictates  of  propriety  than  to  inclination,  sacrificing 
external  form  to  internal  sentiment,  eager  to  lend  assist- 
ance and  sympathy,  less  truthful  than  patient,  and  so  forth. 
A  perfect  soul  is  to  be  formed  from  the  union  of  these 
two.  Hardness  of  character  in  a  woman  is  more  easily 
corrected  than  want  of  honor  in  a  man  :  a  woman's  want 
of  honor  is  as  difficult  to  correct  as  a  man's  harshness. 
A  boy  utterly  without  honor  and  a  girl  without  love 
deserve  nothing  else  at  the  end  of  ten  years  than  to  be 
married  to  each  other.  The  female  sex,  however,  re- 
sembles the  ocean,  or  water  in  general,  which  contains 
both  greater  and  smaller  beasts  than  the  firm  land. 

Since  a  theory  of  education  is  a  moral  science  of  food 
(dietetics),  but  not  a  science  of  healing,  receipts  against 
anger,  selfishness,  &c.  find  no  place  in  my  treatise, 
though  they  are,  indeed,  implied  in  what  has  gone  be- 
fore. And,  truly,  what  a  work  of  giant  folios  must  be 
written  to  embrace  a  description  of  all  the  diseases,  and 
all  the  remedies  for  the  million  shades  of  disease,  which 
the  combinations  of  different  characters  and  years,  va- 
rious degrees  of  activity,  and  external  circumstances  can 
produce ! 

The  technical  part  of  morality,  such  as  order,  clean- 
liness, politeness,  has  already  found  teachers  in  larger 
books  than  this. 

It  is  well  that  a  treatise  on  education  be  occasionally 
written  in  pamphlet-form,  and  completed  in  three  little 
volumes.  Long  talking  begets  short  hearing,  for  people 
go  away.  An  educational  library  —  unless,  indeed,  a 
pocket  library  be  invented  —  would  soon  cause  men  to 
attend  to  the  first  plan  which  offered  itself,  rather  than  be 
at  the  trouble  of  reading  a  whole  host  of  books. 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       327 

§123. 

But  a  few  more  paragraphs  may  be  added  without 
too  much  endangering  the  smallness  of  the  book,  or 
the  facility  of  reading  it. 

Would  you  devote  hours  to  moral  instruction  ?  I  would 
rather  recommend  years,  and  a  never-ending  course  of 
that  study.  No  lesson  here  avails  but  that  founded  on 
living  facts,  and  even  it  is  but  as  one  incident  in  a  fable. 
Advancing  life  is  a  perpetual  preacher,  home  a  domestic 
chaplain,  and,  instead  of  morning  and  evening  prayers, 
life-long  prayers  must  exert  their  influence.  Sciences 
can  be  taught ;  so  in  them  you  may  give  lessons  :  genius 
can  only  be  aroused ;  provide  it,  then,  with  motives  and 
opportunities.  Can  the  heart  of  a  corpse  send  forth 
living  blood  ?  —  The  heart  is  the  genius  of  virtue  ;  mo- 
rality its  theory  of  aesthetics.  If  you  wish  anything  to  be 
forgotten,  write  it  on  the  inner  side  of  the  study  door  ;  if 
you  want  to  desecrate  the  holy,  hang  a  table  of  com- 
mandments perpetually  before  the  eyes.  Lavater  said, 
"  Every  man  has  his  Devil's  moments."  Consequently  be 
not  lost  in  surprise  if  the  child  also  have  his  Satan's 
seconds  as  well  as  angel's  minutes.  Rather  despair  of 
grown  men  than  of  children.  For  these  confuse  you  so 
much  by  the  beautiful  revelation  of  all  their  feelings  and 
desires,  and  by  their  unpremeditated  echo  of  all  sounds, 
that  the  key-note  remains  unknown  to  you.  With  the 
former,  on  the  contrary,  one  treble-discord  presupposes  an 
instrument  thoroughly  out  of  tune.  And  yet  again  :  if  a 
man  be  so  unfathomable  to  a  man,  how  much  more  so 
must  his  unequal,  a  child,  be,  which  not  merely  conceals 
its  fruit  in  its  leaves,  but  those  in  their  buds,  and  within 
them  the  flowers.  Hence  when  new  and  necessary  de- 
velopments take  place,  even  though  they  be  for  the  worse, 


328  LEVANA. 

do  not  blame  previous  innocent  mistakes  in  the  plan  of 
education.  For  instance  ;  however  much  you  endeavor 
to  conceal  and  repress  the  long-dormant  sexual  instinct, 
it  will  yet  finally  start  up  armed  where  you  least  expect 
it,  like  Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jupiter. 
'  I  think  that  we  parents,  especially  we  modern  parents, 
separate  our  children  too  anxiously  from  other  children  ; 
as  gardeners  do  flowers  to  preserve  the  pollen  unmixed. 
Can  we  very  highly  value  any  good  or  lovely  thing  which 
withers  at  the  slightest  touch  ?  If  we  have  educated  truly 
and  implanted  right  principles  in  a  child  until  his  sixth 
year,  a  few  bad  examples  will  not  so  much  drive  away 
what  is  good  as  fan  it  into  new  life :  if  the  water  in  the 
tea-urn  be  really  boiling,  a  little  spirit  flame  will  keep  it 
so  all  tea-time.  Not  the  badness,  but  the  long  continuance, 
of  examples  injures  children.  And,  again,  the  examples 
of  strange  children  and  indifferent  people  have  less  effect 
than  those  of  the  persons  they  most  respect,  —  their 
parents  and  teachers;  because  the  latter,  like  the  exter- 
nal conscience  of  children,  so  break  or  darken  their 
internal  conscience,  that  the  Devil  finds  it  prepared 
for  his  residence. 

Yes,  I  go  still  further,  and  declare  the  preponderating 
influence  of  a  good  example  over  a  bad  one  —  or  the  vic- 
tory of  the  angel  Michael  over  the  Devil  —  to  be  so  great, 
that  I  believe  the  poor  children  of  a  thoroughly  unmar- 
riage-like  union,  where  one  parent  is  the  ally  of  the  Devil, 
and  the  other  of  the  angel,  will  be  gathered  hardly,  and 
at  great  cost,  but  all  the  more  certainly  under  the  white 
flag. 

The  younger  the  children  are,  the  more  rapidly  may 
we  pass  before  them  from  jest  to  earnest ;  for  they  do  so 
themselves.     All  their  modes  of  going  from  one  thing  to 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       329 

another  are  leaps.  How  quickly  they  forget  and  forgive ! 
Then  do  so  to  them,  especially  in  cases  of  punishment,  and 
always  inflict  short  punishments,  so  that  they  may  never 
be  thought  unfounded  and  unjust.  God  be  thanked  for 
the  memory  of  children,  which  is  less  retentive  of  sorrows 
than  of  joys  !  Else  what  a  prickly  chain,  formed  by  the 
uninterrupted  series  of  punishments,  would  surround  these 
little  beings  !  But  children  are  capable  of  being  delighted 
twenty  times  even  on  the  worst  of  days.  It  is  as  difficult 
to  arouse  them  from  their  sweet,  godlike  slumber  by  do- 
mestic or  European  wars  as  to  awaken  flowers  out  of 
their  sleep  by  noise  and  motion.  God  grant  the  dear  httle 
ones  may  awake,  like  the  flowers,  to  feel  the  sunshine  and 
behold  the  day ! 

There  are  confused,  obstinate  hours,  in  which  the  child 
positively  cannot  pronounce  certain  words,  nor  obey  cer- 
tain commands  ;  but  he  will  do  so  the  next  hour.  Do  not 
consider  this  as  stubbornness.  I  know  men  who  have 
labored  for  years  to  get  rid  of  some  expression  of  the 
face,  mode  of  writing,  or  odd  word,  to  which  they  have 
become  habituated,  without  any  particular  result.  Apply 
this  to  children,  who  are  often  commanded  to  abandon 
some  thousand  habits  at  once,  and  do  not  exclaim  so  bit- 
terly against  their  disobedience,  which  is  often  nothing  but 
the  impossibility  of  an  overburdened  attention. 

The  fruits  of  the  right  education  of  the  first  three  years 
(a  higher  triennium  than  the  academic)  cannot  be  reaped 
during  the  sowing ;  —  and  you  will  often  be  unable  to 
understand  why,  after  doing  so  much,  so  much  still  re- 
mains to  be  done  ;  —  but  in  a  few  years  the  growing  har- 
vest will  surprise  and  reward  you  ;  for  the  numerous 
earthy  crusts  which  covered  the  flower-shoots,  but  did  not 
crush  them,  have  at  last  burst  before  them. 


330  LEVANA. 

§124. 

Physical  nature  makes  many  little  steps  before  taking 
a  leap,  and  then  begins  the  same  process  over  again  ;  the 
law  of  continuity  is  animated  by  the  law  of  advancing  and 
retreating  efforts.  The  truth  of  this  assertion  is  shown  in 
almost  every  instance  of  physical  development. 

But  the  mind  must  always  be  the  companion  of  the 
body  ;  it  is  the  strophe,  the  other  the  antistrophe,  though 
occasionally  their  positions  are  reversed.  The  heavy 
clouds  of  the  body  must  break  in  thunder-showers  ;  the 
growth  of  the  physical  powers  must  produce  growth  in 
the  mental  powers  also ;  and  they,  again,  necessitate  the 
former.  But  then  the  teacher  stands  petrified,  to  behold 
a  new  inimical  —  really  friendly  —  division  in  the  child's 
nature,  and  believes  the  former  world  to  have  vanished, 
because  a  new  world  has  sprung  into  existence.  Accus- 
tomed to  the  old,  he  would  rather  see  the  child's  growth  a 
mere  growing  old ;  in  short,  he  would  wish  it  to  be  always 
the  same,  or,  at  most,  to  exhibit  no  greater  change  than 
that  from  the  print  to  the  colored  painting :  —  the  child 
must  not  drop  his  first  seed-leaves  in  the  beams  of  the 
sharp-cutting  world,  but  yet  must  push  forth  new  growing 
leaves.  But  since  this  can  never  be ;  since  every  appli- 
cation of  the  flute  to  the  lips  produces  a  new  incorporeal 
sound,  the  teacher  ought  to  be  of  good  courage,  and  only 
say,  "  The  parts  developed  last  must  grow  upon  the  first, 
and  why  need  I  fear  for  these,  if  there  is  nothing  I  would 
wish  to  recall  in  the  others  ?  " 

§  125. 

Parents  possess  a  very  easy  and  excellent  means  of 
preaching,  and  at  the  same  time  interesting  and  improv- 
ing their  children,  by  relating  to  them  how  they  passed 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       331 

their  own  childhood  with  their  parents.  Independent  of 
all  other  considerations,  whatever  is  little  is,  on  that  very 
account,  most  pleasing  to  a  child,  himself  a  little  thing ; 
the  author's  children  have  sometimes  begged  him  for  a 
little  sea,  nay,  even  for  a  little  God.  Now  if  the  father 
or  mother  will  descend  from  their  lofty  height,  and  speak 
of  themselves,  the  parents,  as  having  once  been  children, 
the  little  people  can  scarcely  comprehend  it,  and  look, 
with  the  anxious  desire  of  learning,  into  the  diminishing 
glass  in  which  their  present  giant-parents  move  about  as 
little  children.  There  they  see  grandparents  now  com- 
mand little  parents,  and  the  very  people  obey  whom  now 
the  child  has  to  obey.  In  this  relation  he  will  only  dis- 
cover the  continuation  of  a  previously  acquired  right,  not 
of  a  mere  accident ;  —  here  he  finds  that  his  father  com- 
mands now  what  formerly,  when  a  child,  he  obeyed ;  that 
he  dearly  loved,  and  was  dearly  loved  by  his  parents,  in 
whose  breast  the  little  grandchild  now  nestles  all  the  more 
closely  and  warmly  from  the  recollection  of  former  love. 
Since  the  history  of  his  parents'  childhood  must  have  so 
fresh  and  unceasing  interest  for  the  child,  how  great  a 
weight  and  charm  may  there  not  be  given  by  means  of 
this  interest  to  every  word,  every  instruction,  and,  in 
short,  to  everything  embraced  in  that  relation  ?  If  it 
chance  that  parents,  thus  describing  their  own  life,  were 
brought  up  as  children  in  other  circumstances,  in  other 
dwelling-places,  the  seed-field  of  instruction  is  vastly  ex- 
tended. In  short,  parents  in  relating  the  incidents  of  their 
own  childhood  simply  and  truly  may  lay  seeds,  which  in 
the  warm  soil  of  their  children's  childhood  will  grow  and 
bear  fruit.  Even  the  little  faults  of  their  parents,  and  the 
consequent  punishments  of  the  grandparents,  will  not  in 
relation  lessen  the  children's  reverence  for  their  parents, 


332  LEVANA. 

unless  its  foundation  be  grievously  hollow,  and  the  super- 
structure most  poorly  built. 

We  have  here  approached  so  very  near  the  question, 
What  are  the  best  kind  of  stories  for  children  ?  that  we 
may  as  well  reply  to  it  forthwith.  Oriental  and  romantic 
tales  seem  the  most  suitable  ;  such  as  many  of  the  Arabian 
Nights'  Entertainment,  Herder's  Palm-Leaves,  and  Krum- 
macher's  Parables.  Children  are  little  Orientals.  Dazzle 
them  with  the  wide  plains  of  the  East,  with  brilliant  dew- 
drops,  and  bright-tinted  flowers.  Give  them,  at  least  in 
stories,  the  impulse  which  shall  carry  them  over  our  cold 
northern  rocks  and  North  Capes,  into  the  warm  gardens 
of  the  south.  Let  your  first  miracle  be,  like  Christ's,  a 
turning  of  water  into  wine,  of  fact  into  poetry.  Therefore 
do  not  shut  up  everything  you  permit  to  approach  your 
child  in  a  pulpit,  with  a  sermon  before  it,  nor  suffer  that 
morbid  seeking  after  "  the  moral,"  which  deforms  most 
printed  children's  tales,  and  by  which,  precisely  when 
they  are  on  the  way  to  the  highest,  they  lose  the  path ; 
just  as  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  generally  lost  at  chess, 
because  he  moved  out  his  king.  Every  good  tale,  like 
every  good  poem,  is  necessarily  surrounded  with  instruc- 
tion. But  the  important  thing  is,  —  to  paint  a  romantic 
morning-glow  on  the  earth-kissing  sky  which,  as  age  ad- 
vances, may  deepen  into  a  pure  evening-red.  Tell  of  ter- 
rible wild  beasts,  but  let  them  be  always  at  last  overcome 
—  (still  let  children  be  the  most  frequent  actors  on  your 
stage)  —  also  of  long  caverns,  which  lead  to  heavenly 
gardens,  —  of  being  happy,  and  of  making  happy,  —  of 
great  dangers,  and  still  more  wonderful  deliverances,  — 
and  even  the  strange  adventures  of  mischievous  children ; 
but  always  remember  in  your  tales  that  tears  are  sooner 
drawn   from   children   than   smiles.      For   instance,   the 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       333 

author  has  frequently  carried  this  so  far  as  to  represent 
the  infant  Christ*  (he  never  even  mentioned  a  Rupert*) 
seated  on  the  moon,  surrounded  with  none  but  good  chil- 
dren ;  and  the  evening  glow  in  the  December  sky  he 
could  only  account  for  by  supposing  it  the  reflection  of 
the  carriages  full  of  Christmas  gifts.  In  after  years, 
when  the  children  gaze  upon  the  moon,  and  the  redness 
of  the  evening  sky,  a  wonderful  delight  will  gently  fill 
their  souls,  and  they  will  not  know  what  strange  ethereal 
air  they  breathe  :  the  morning  breeze  of  your  childhood 
fans  you,  my  children ! 

These  fictions,  when  translated  into  reality,  lead  to  no 
accusations  of  parental  untruthfulness,  as  our  own  exam- 
ples,! and  those  of  our  forefathers,  else  grounded  fast  in 
truth,  abundantly  prove. 

And  after  all  this,  shall  not  the  freedom  which  makes 
children  citizens  of  the  divine  city  of  romance,  not  open 
for  them  the  theatre :  I  do  not  mean  that  where  comedies 
and  tragedies  are  played,  which  only  stun,  excite,  or  de- 
ceive them,  nor  yet  the  little  stage  where  they  are  them- 
selves the  actors,  —  but  the  opera-house  ?  Does  not  the 
opera  reveal  romantic  fairy-land  to  their  eyes,  and  yet, 
by  the  impossibility  of  understanding  the  singing,  which 
throws  a  wholesome  darkness  over  the  intrigue,  preserve 
their  ears  from  every  moral  taint  ?  And  does  not  what  is 
glaringly  low  ia  close  connection  with  what  is  noble  (as, 
for  instance,  in  the  Zauberflote),  like  the  union  of  a  mon- 

*  Vide  previous  notes. 

t  The  rosy  pictures  yet  bloom  in  the  author's  heart,  which  his 
father  once  painted  there,  on  coming  out  of  the  study  into  the  De- 
cember twilight,  with  the  insignificant  words,  he  had  seen  the  infant 
Chi-ist  with  golden  beams  pass  through  the  dark  night  clouds.  Who 
now  could  replace  for  him  this  rosy  blessed  beam,  this  heavenly  treas- 
ure still  shining  in  the  clouds? 


334  LEVANA. 

key  and  a  nun,  strengthen  the  love  for  excellence,  and  the 
detestation  of  depravity  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  opera, 
this  acting,  living  fairy-tale,  which  the  music  makes  metri- 
cal, and  the  brilliant  scenery  romantic,  might  change  the 
heavy  plough-like  motion  and  creaking  of  the  present  into 
smooth  flying,  and  is  all  the  more  necessary,  because  prose 
may  be  taught,  but  not  poetry,  and  wings  can  more  easily 
find  feet  than  feet  wings.  At  the  same  time,  these  sug 
gestions  are  offered  rather  interrogatively  than  affirma- 
tively ;  since  you  may  venture  everything,  and  replace 
everything  more  easily  than  a  child's  innocence. 

§  126. 

I  would  wish  to  say  a  few  words  about  long  journeys 
for  children.  Short  ones  of  a  few  weeks  are  with  justice 
considered  to  be  physically  and  mentally  improving  trans- 
plantations of  these  young  trees ;  because  the  exchange 
of  their  old  dull  corner  for  the  wide,  airy  landscape  full 
of  different  people  and  new  customs  must  necessarily  en- 
liven and  improve  them.  But  something  very  different 
are  children's  travels  with  town-dwellers  and  land-scourers, 
who  make  the  grand  tour  of  half  Europe, —  (an  expedition 
through  his  native  town  is  one  to  a  child,)  —  during  which 
the  daily  transplanted  tree  is  merely  exhausted.  If  even 
grown-up  people  bring  back  from  their  journeys  round  the 
world  full  heads  and  empty  hearts ;  because  daily  walks 
through  streets  full  of  men  only  presenting  the  gauntlet, 
or,  at  all  events,  never  offering  a  brother's  kiss,  must  at 
last  make  the  heart  as  cold  as  life  at  court  does,  where, 
as  in  a  country-dance,  the  dancer  goes  down  the  middle, 
and  up  again,  giving  his  hand  indifferently  to  all ;  how 
much  must  early  long  journeys  —  bringing  only  the  ripe- 
ness of  autumn  to  matured  men — destroy  a  child  by  pro- 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       335 

ducing  such  ripeness  in  spring.  Living  long  in  close  con- 
nection with  the  same  people  cherishes  in  children  the 
warmth  of  the  affections.  The  uniform  sameness  of 
people,  dwellings,  play-grounds,  and  even  domestic  fur- 
niture, hangs  lovingly  on  a  child,  and  strengthens  that 
magnetic  attraction,  as  a  weight  does  suspended  from  a 
magnet :  and  thus  in  the  spring-time  of  life  is  prepared 
the  rich  magnetic  burst  of  the  future  affections,  because 
the  child  naturally  learns  to  love  what  he  daily  sees,  — 
an  easy  matter  in  a  village,  —  the  hewer  of  wood  for  the 
family,  the  woman  carrier,  old  Peter,  who  comes  every 
Saturday  to  beg  for  Sunday ;  yes,  even  the  more  distin- 
guished persons  of  his  acquaintance  who  live  far  away. 
With  a  childhood  full  of  affection  we  may  endure  half  a 
life  in  the  cold  world.  If,  now,  instead  of  such  environ- 
ments, a  child  be  taken  on  long  journeys,  —  say  half  over 
Europe,  —  and  must,  since  it  is  impossible  to  pack  up 
market-places  with  their  inhabitants  in  the  carriage,  or  to 
crowd  them  into  the  hotels  of  large  cities,  every  day  fall 
upon  new  people,  new  rooms,  new  servants,  new  guests, 
towards  whom  it  is  impossible,  from  mere  lack  of  time, 
for  the  young  heart  to  experience  any  burst  of  sympathy : 
—  what,  then,  can  grow  out  of  this  little  creature  ?  A 
courtier  without  a  court,  cool,  polite,  elegant,  languid, 
ennuye,  sweet  and  pretty. 

§  127. 

Since  in  appendices,  as  in  prefaces,  things  may  be 
repeated  which  are  contained  in  the  book,  I  say,  again, 
let  there  be  rules  for  children  ;  it  is  immaterial  what,  but 
only  as  the  centre  of  innumerable  rays !  Law  is  unity, 
unity  is  deity.  The  Devil  only  is  changeable.  Unity  of 
rule  at  once  strengthens  and  controls  both  the  too  deli- 


336  LEVANA. 

cately  sensitive  girl  and  the  rough,  active  boy ;  for  the 
very  same  reason  that  we  patiently  endure  the  discomfort 
of  frost,  and  the  unbroken  desolateness  of  the  earth  in 
winter,  whereas  a  few  snow-flakes  in  spring  make  us 
angry  and  gloomy :  only  because  in  winter  the  w^hite 
enamel  of  snow  is  the  rule,  but  in  spring  the  various 
tinted  flowers.  No  command  seems  harsher  than  the 
new  one  ;  no  necessity,  than  that  which  is  freshly  im- 
posed. If  you  would  picture  to  yourself  the  most 
unhappy  and  most  unfortunately  circumstanced  child, 
think  of  one  who  has  been  brought  up  by  chance  merely, 
without  rule,  irritated  and  appeased  without  reason,  — 
destitute  of  confidence  in  the  future,  —  finding  in  every 
minute  a  driving  storm,  —  wishing  nothing  else  than  the 
fulfilment  of  his  momentary  desires,  —  a  ball  thrown 
sportively  from  love  to  hate,  —  with  sorrows  that  bring 
no  strength,  and  joys  which  produce  no  love.  Happily 
I  see  no  such  being  near  me  !  Have  not  even  unjust 
rules  a  beneficial  tendency  in  producing  obedience  to 
rule  ?  When  punishments  were  attached  to  the  unin- 
tentional dropping  of  the  hat,  or  even  falling  in  riding 
through  the  streets  of  a  town,  both  happened  much  more 
rarely :  and  in  brotherhoods  or  sisterhoods  where  every 
snorer  is  awakened,  no  one  snores :  and  where  punish- 
ment is  threatened  even  for  the  accidental  breaking  of 
china,  less  is  broken.  But  the  threatening  must  be  a 
year  older  than  the  fault  or  the  punishment,  else  the 
rule  fails. 

§128. 

Give  reasons  for  your  requests  more  readily,  and  even 
at  an  earlier  period,  than  reasons  for  your  assertions  :  in 
the  first  place,  it  is  easier  to  teach  obedience  than  under- 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       337 

standing;  in  the  second,  a  child's  trust  must  never  be 
weakened  by  reasons  which  only  lead  to  doubt ;  in  the 
third,  action  requires  external  quickness,  belief  demands 
time ;  and,  in  the  fourth,  the  former  is  usually  more 
opposed  to  previous  wishes  than  the  latter  (for  children 
are  seldom  orthodox)  :  at  the  same  time  that  you  smooth 
the  way  for  your  commands,  as  the  French  kings  did, 
by  gentle  reasons,  insist,  like  them,  on  obedience,  if  the 
reasons  do  not  induce  it.  In  a  second  edition  of  these 
rules,  even  as  to  giving  reasons  for  commands,  we  find 
that  the  line  must  be  drawn  still  tighter.  Mothers, 
partly  from  kindness,  partly  from  an  inherent  love  of 
the  healthy  movement  of  the  tongue,  give  as  many  rea- 
sons for  their  orders  as  may  overcome  the  opposing 
arguments  of  the  child  ;  and,  if  at  last  they  should  be 
unable  to  produce  more,  finish  by  asserting  their  author- 
ity. It  were  better  to  have  begun  with  it.  And  cer- 
tainly, after  compliance,  the  reasons  will  find  readier 
admittance  into  the  open,  impartial  ears.  This  is  most 
markedly  the  case  in  the  earliest  years ;  each  advancing 
year  requires  an  additional  reason.  The  united  care, 
both  for  a  child's  obedience  and  freedom,  is  one  of  the 
most  difiicult  requirements  of  education.  The  parental 
breath  must  only  move  the  branch  towards  the  fructifying 
pollen,  but  not  bend  or  break  the  trunk. 

'  §  129. 

Teachers  generally  desire  an  appendix  to  the  chapter 
on  moral  education,  containing  a  treatise  on  the  preven- 
tion of  sensual  faults.  Why  do  we  find  no  such  lamen- 
tations and  remedies  among  the  ancients  or  in  the  middle 
ages  ?  Must  we  suppose  that  the  youth  of  those  periods 
was  better  than  the  present  ?     Scarcely  so.     The  reason 

15  V 


338  LEVANA. 

why  so  much  more  is  said  and  taught  about  such  matters 
now  —  always  remembering,  also,  that  books  are  now 
made,  and  a  book-trade  established,  about  every  action  — 
can  only  lie  in  this,  that  in  the  healthful  past,  as  now 
among  the  vigorous  commonalty,  or  unrestrained  animals, 
many  ill-regulated  actions  passed  unpunished,  because 
the  fortifications  of  these  unpolished  times  were  not  so 
easily  demolished.  But,  at  all  events,  the  morbid,  sickly 
imagination  attendant  on  civihzation  is  quite  as  much 
cause  as  effect ;  to  which  must  be  added  the  temptations 
to  these  errors  necessarily  presented  by  large  towns. 

Luther  says,  Contemptus  frangit  diabolum,  ohservatio 
inflat ;  which  means,  that  to  combat  sin  you  must  know 
it,  and  that  is  in  itself  a  kind  of  defeat.  A  feeling  of 
shame  artificially  taught  before  duly  awakened  by  nature 
is  a  sewing  together  of  the  fig-leaves  conducting  to  the 
fall,  which  in  Eden  they  only  covered.  The  modesty 
which  naturally  arises  at  a  later  period,  is  like  the  fig- 
tree  itself,  which  only  hides  under  its  leaves  the  unripe 
fruit,  which  contains  no  poison. 

Many  persons  even  say  that  a  child  should  learn  to  be 
ashamed  of  seeing  himself.  Himself!  Gracious  heaven! 
how  much  must  the  young  mind  have  been  poisoned 
before  it  would  blush  at  the  form  it  cannot  change  and 
did  not  choose  ?  before,  in  fact,  it  would  blush  at  its 
Creator?  To  insure  modesty  I  would  advise  the  edu- 
cating of  the  sexes  together ;  for  two  boys  will  preserve 
twelve  girls,  or  two  girls  twelve  boys,  innocent  amidst 
winks,  jokes,  and  improprieties,  merely  by  that  instinctive 
sense  which  is  the  forerunner  of  matured  modesty.  But 
I  will  guarantee  nothing  in  a  school  where  girls  are  alone 
together,  and  still  less  where  boys  are.  Boys  do  harm 
to  boys  far  more  than  girls  to  girls  ;  for  they  are  bolder, 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       339 

opener,  rougher,  more  sociable,  more  curious  about  mat- 
ters, as  girls  are  about  persons. 

The  glass  screens  which  teachers  put  before  the  mental 
eyes  of  children  are  part  of  the  mistaken  instruction  in 
modesty ;  a  kind  of  incomprehensible  covering  of  a  cov- 
er, the  sheep's  clothing  of  a  sheep.  He  who  admits  that 
he  has  a  secret  to  keep  has,  by  doing  so,  revealed  one 
half  of  it,  and  the  other  will  speedily  follow.  Children's 
questions  about  where  a  little  baby  comes  from,  show 
nothing  whatever  more  than  a  blameless  desire  of  know- 
ing and  asking  about  strange  things.  A  child's  questions 
about  his  mother's  confinement  have  no  more  sinister 
meaning  than  his  asking  why  the  sun,  which  goes  to  bed 
in  the  west,  rises  in  the  east.  But  if  those  about  him 
attach  a  foolish  mystification  to  the  event,  instinct,  which 
lies  in  the  background,  united  with  accidental  expressions, 
which  he  will  treasure  up,  will  prematurely  clear  away 
the  darkness.  To  this  really  injurious  secrecy  belong 
such  expressions  as,  "  This  is  only  for  grown-up  people,'* 
or,  "  When  you  are  older,  you  will  know  all  about  it," 
&c.  Secret  articles  always  give  rise  to  war ;  and  secret 
alliance  with  sin  is  not  very  far  from  secret  instructions 
of  this  kind. 

But  how  is  the  questioning  child  to  he  answered  ? 
With  as  much  truth  as  he  wants  :  "  As  the  little  grub 
grows  inside  the  nut,  so  the  little  infant  grows  within 
its  mother,  and  is  nourished  by  her  flesh  and  blood  ; 
hence  she  is  ill,"  &c.  Since  children  understand  ten 
times  less  of  what  is  said  than  we  suppose,  and,  like 
grown-up  people,  ask  a  thousand  times  less  about  the 
final  when  they  know  the  secondary  cause,  it  will  prob- 
ably be  several  years  before  the  child  again  asks  whence 
the  little  creature  comes.     Then  give  him  this  answer : 


340  LEVANA. 

"  From  the  great  God,  who  sends  these  little  babies 
to  married  people."  We  grown-up  philosophers  know 
nothing  more  about  it ;  and  you  say  with  perfect  truth 
to  the  child,  "  A  human  being  can  carve  a  statue,  or 
embroider  a  flower,  but  he  can  make  no  living  thing 
that  grows."  How  easily  a  child's  curiosity  may  be 
restrained,  and  yet  satisfied,  is  very  clearly  shown  in 
the  fact,  that  during  the  last  three  centuries  millions  of 
Christians  have  died  who  have  regularly  every  Sunday 
heard  that  baptism  took  the  place  of  the  ancient  Jewish 
rite  of  circumcision,  and  yet  have  never  thought,  far 
less  asked,  what  circumcision  is.  Children  learn  and 
ask  in  the  same  way.  The  author  received  his  first 
instruction  in  this  article  of  Christian  faith  after  eighteen 
years'  study  of  Jewish  works. 

One  other  remark  may  perhaps  afford  consolation  to 
some  parents  :  children  at  a  certain  age  seem  to  have 
a  particular  inclination  to  do  and  to  say  improper  things. 
This  is  sometimes  very  strangely  manifested.  I  once 
heard  some  really  pure-minded,  good  children  beg  their 
father  to  repeat  some  ugly,  words  (referring  to  rudeness 
of  speech  more  than  anything  else)  which  he  had  for- 
bidden them  to  use,  because,  they  said,  they  liked  to 
hear  such  words.  Be  not  afraid,  if  you  educate  your 
children  carefully,  of  evil  results.  In  the  case  of 
healthy  children,  especially,  you  need  have  no  fear ;  but 
physical  indisposition  too  easily  induces  a  morbid  sickli- 
ness of  the  mind. 

In  short,  if  there  be  any  time  when  one  person's  aid 
is  needed  in  the  development  of  another,  it  is  when  the 
ripening  youth  (or  maiden)  first  discovers  his  new  world 
of  sex,  when  the  fresh-blooming  man  bursts  away  from 
the  fading  child.     Happily  Nature  herself  has  provided 


APPENDIX    ON    MORAL    EDUCATION.       341 

a  counterpoise  to  these  seasonable  spring-storms,  by 
giving  at  the  same  time  the  hours  of  fairest  dreams,  of 
ideal  excellence,  and  love  for  all  that  is  greatest  and  best. 
The  watchful  teacher,  also,  may  add  a  balancing  weight 
to  the  heart,  namely,  the  head ;  that  is,  let  him  reserve 
for  that  season  some  new  science,  some  new  object  of 
engrossing  interest,  some  new  path  in  life.  It  is  true 
this  will  not  extinguish  the  volcano ;  but  the  lava  pour- 
ing into  this  sea  will  merely  harden  into  a  rock,  and  less 
evil  will  be  done  than  was  dreaded.  For,  out  of  all  the 
yawning  precipices  of  this  age,  does  not  a  majority  of 
healthy  living  voices  arise,  which  have  not  been  silenced, 
and  which  do  not  utter  complaints  ?  It  is  but  a  very 
small  number  which  is  silent,  without  throat  and  without 
lungs,  without  either  mind  or  body,  —  mere  unburied 
corpses  of  hovering  ghosts.  —  May  Heaven  present  them 
with  a  grave ! 


SEVENTH   FRAGMENT. 

Chap.  I.  More  accurate  Definition  of  the  Desire  for  Intellectual  Pro- 
gress, §  130.  —  Chap.  II.  Speech  and  Writing,  §^  131,  132.  —  Chap. 
III.  Attention,  and  the  Power  of  Adaptive  Combination ;  Pestalozzi ; 
Difference  between  Mathematics  and  Philosophy,  ^  133-135. — 
Chap.  IV.  Development  of  Wit,  §§  136  - 138.  —  Chap.  V.  Devel- 
opment of  Reflection,  Abstraction,  and  Self-Knowledge ;  together 
with  an  extra  Paragraph  on  the  Powers  of  Action  and  Business, 
§§  139,  140.  —  Chap.  VI.  On  the  Education  of  the  Recollection, 
not  of  the  Memory,  §§  141-144. 

CHAPTER    I. 

ON    THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE    DESIRE    FOR    INTELLECTUAL 
PROGRESS. 


§130. 

THER  writers  on  education  call  the  desire  of 
intellectual  progression  the  faculty  of  obtain- 
ing knowledge,  —  that  is  to  say,  they  call 
painting  seeing,  —  or  the  intellectual  powers, 
and  think  of  the  senses  and  the  memory  as  also  exerting 
an  educational  influence ;  or  they  speak  of  the  develop- 
ment of  spontaneous  activity,  as  if  the  will  itself  were  not 
such  a  developing  power.  The  majorfty  (before  Pesta- 
lozzi)  only  attempted  to  pour  into  the  mind  a  vast  amount 
of  knowledge  of  every  kind,  and  thought  an  intelligent 
man  must  be  the  necessary  result.     Learned  fools,  with 


INTELLECTUAL    PROGRESS.  343 

mind  neither  for  the  present  nor  the  future,  who  (like 
finite  beings  in  another  sense)  are  continuously  created, 
but  never  able  to  create ;  heirs  of  all  ideas,  but  origina- 
tors of  none,  they  are  indeed  samples  of  their  education, 
but  no  proofs  of  its  excellence. 

We  will  take  the  straight  path  which  leads  to  the  cen- 
tre, instead  of  wandering  round  and  round  the  circle. 

The  will  reproduces  itself  only,  and  acts  only  within, 
not  without,  itself;  for  the  external  action  is  as  little  the 
new  act  of  the  particular  voHtion,  as  are  the  words  signi- 
fying it  of  the  particular  thought.  The  desire  of  mental 
progress,  on  the  contrary,  enlarges  its  world  for  the  recep- 
tion of  new  creatures,  and  is  as  dependent  on  objects  as 
the  pure  will  is  independent  of  them.  The  will  could 
reach  its  ideal,  but  finds  a  strange  opposition  to  it, — 
Kant's  radical  evil,  —  whereas  no  power  stands  opposed 
to  thought,  —  as  sin  does  to  virtue,  —  but  only  the  differ- 
ence between  its  steps,  and  the  impossibihty  of  seeing 
whither  they  reach.  To  know  nothing  is  not  so  bad  as 
to  do  nothing ;  and  error  is  less  the  opponent  than  the 
accompaniment  of  truth;  for  to  miscalculate  means 
merely  to  obtain  something  different  from  what  it  should 
be,  but  still  to  calculate ;  whereas  immorality  stands  di- 
rectly opposed  to  morality. 

The  mental  desire  of  advancement  which,  in  a  higher 
sense  than  the  physical,  works  by  means  of,  and  in  ac- 
cordance with,  the  will,  that  is  to  say,  creates  new  ideas 
out  of  old  ideas,  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
man.  No  will  restrains  the  order  of  a  beast's  actions. 
In  our  waking  moments  we  are  actually  conscious  that 
we  think ;  in  our  dreams  we  receive,  if  I  may  so  express 
it,  that  consciousness.  In  the  man  of  genius  the  forma- 
tion of  ideas  appears  actually  creative ;  in  ordinary  men, 


344  LEVANA. 

merely  recollective  and  necessary :  the  precise  shades  of 
difference  are,  however,  difficult  to  deiSne.  The  develop- 
ments of  this  formative  power  are,  first,  language ;  and, 
secondly,  observation;  both  of  which,  by  defining  and 
marking  an  idea,  bring  it  more  accurately  before  the 
mind ;  thirdly,  imagination,  which  is  capable  of  retaining 
a  whole  series  of  ideas,  so  as  to  obtain  from  it  the  un- 
known, but  sought  for,  and,  consequently,  anticipated 
greatness,  either  as  part,  consequence,  foundation,  symbol, 
or  image;  fourthly,  wit;  fifthly,  reflection;  sixthly,  re- 
membrance. 

From  this  almost  genealogical  gradation  it  is  readily 
perceived  that  all  instruction  naturally  falls  into  two  dis- 
tinct classes,  one  of  which  —  mathematics,  for  example 
—  provides  organic  material  for  the  intellectual  energies ; 
the  other,  —  such  as  natural  history,  —  only  inanimate 
objects.  For  all  cumulative  preliminary  instruction,  be 
it  in  natural  history,  geography,  history,  antiquities,  only 
provides  the  intellect  with  materials,  not  with  incitements 
to  labor  and  power.  The  old  division  into  knowledge  of 
words  and  knowledge  of  things  is  certainly  correct ;  but 
the  inventory  of  what  belongs  to  one  class,  and  what  to 
the  other,  is  about  as  erroneous  as  that  of  diseases  before 
the  time  of  Brown,  which,  as  by  him,  were  divided  into 
sthenic  and  asthenic,  diarrhoea  and  plague  being  placed  in 
the  former,  and  the  truly  sthenic  complaints  of  coughs, 
catarrhs,  &c.,  in  the  latter  class.  Language,  for  instance, 
was  ranked  as  a  knowledge  of  words ;  the  history  of  na- 
ture and  of  nations,  as  a  knowledge  of  things :  it  ought 
to  be  reversed. 

One  word  in  this  place  on  the  abuse,  or  too  great  use, 
of  natural  history.  This  seems  to  be  the  wishing-cap  of 
those  teachers  who  have  little  of  that  on  which  the  hat  is 


SPEECH.  345 

usually  placed ;  or  tne  purveyor  of  those  who  are  defi- 
cient in  scientific  knowledge.  The  author  was  gratified 
by  finding,  in  Goethe's  Elective  Affinities,  accordance 
with  a  thought  which  he  had  noted  down  in  his  children's 
diary  in  Januaiy,  1808  ;  namely,  what  advantage  can 
children  obtain  from  the  description  of  an  unknown  for- 
eign animal  which  would  not  equally  result  from  that  of 
any  casual  monster?  At  most  this  unverified  account 
can  but  serve  as  honey  on  wholesome  bread,  or  as  the 
bill  of  sale  of  some  animal  to  be  seen ;  and  is  altogether 
a  mere  home-reading  by  the  light  of  the  embers.  But, 
on  the  contrary ,•  the  most  minute  family  history,  with 
representations  the  size  of  life,  should  be  given  about  all 
domestic  and  native  animals.  Yea,  how  very  much 
would  botany  and  mineralogy,  not  only  as  exercising  the 
observation,  but  also  as  enriching  the  present,  exceed  the 
small  advantages  of  foreign  zoology !  Just  in  the  same 
way  might  the  modern  expensively  painted  worlds  {orhis 
pictus)  be  advantageously  replaced  by  workshops,  in 
which  one  artificer  after  another  could  actually  show  and 
explain  his  trade  to  his  children  guests. 


CHAPTER   II. 

SPEECH    AND    WRITING. 

§131. 


TO  learn  to  speak  is  something  higher  than  to  learn  to 
speak  languages ;  and  all  the  advantages  which  are 
ascribed  to  the  ancient  languages,  as  educational  media, 
15* 


346  LEVANA. 

apply  with  double  force  to  the  mother-tongue.  Every 
new  language  is  only  understood  by  connecting  and  bal- 
ancing it  with  the  first :  the  original  primary  sign  merely 
acquires  another  sign ;  and  so  the  new  language  is  not 
formed  on  the  one  last  learned,  nor  is  one  dependent  on 
another,  but  all  on  the  first  native  tongue. 

Name  to  the  child  every  object,  every  sensation,  every 
action,  in  case  of  exigency,  even  by  a  foreign  word  (for 
to  the  child,  as  yet,  there  is  none)  ;  and  always,  where 
it  is  possible,  arouse  his  attention,  and  give  accuracy  to 
his  perceptions,  by  naming  all  the  individual  parts  of 
whatever  you  may  have  in  hand.  A  child  has  invari- 
ably so  great  a  love  of  hearing,  that  he  will  constantly 
ask  questions  about  matters  which  he  knows,  merely  in 
order  to  hear  you  speak,  or  will  even  tell  you  some  little 
story,  so  as  to  have  the  pleasure  of  hearmg  you  after- 
wards relate  it  to  him.  By  the  fact  of  naming,  external 
objects,  like  islands,  are  taken  possession  of,  and  animals 
are  tamed  by  accustoming  them  to  answer  to  a  name. 
Without  a  defining  word,  —  the  mental  index-finger,  — 
unlimited  nature  stands  before  a  child  like  a  column  of 
quicksilver  without  a  barometric  scale  (to  the  beast  it  is 
even  without  the  ball  of  quicksilver),  and  by  it  no  move- 
ment can  be  qbserved.  Speech  is  the  finest  line-drawer 
of  infinity,  the  dividing  water  of  chaos :  the  importance  of 
its  minute  subdivisions  is  shown  in  savages,  with  whom 
frequently  a  single  word  signifies  a  whole  sentence.  A 
village  child  is  inferior  to  a  town  child  merely  by  his 
poverty  of  speech.  To  the  dumb  beast  the  whole  world 
gives  but  one  impression,  and  so  from  want  of  two  he 
does  not  even  count  one. 

Let  every  material  substance  be  both  mentally  and 
physically  divided  and  analyzed  before  the  child,  during 


SPEECH.  347 

the  first  ten  years  of  his  life ;  but  suffer  nothing  spiritual 
to  undergo  the  same  process,  for  this,  which  exists  only 
once,  and  that  within  the  child,  soon  dies,  without  the 
chance  of  resurrection,  under  the  severing-knife ;  bodies, 
on  the  contrary,  return  new-born  every  day. 

The  mother  tongue  affords  the  most  innocent  philoso- 
phy and  exercise  of  reflection  for  children.  Speak  very 
much  and  very  clearly ;  and  oblige  them  to  be  definite  in 
the  affairs  of  every-day  life.  Why  do  you  leave  mental 
development  by  means  of  language  to  a  foreign  tongue  ? 

Occasionally  attempt  longer  sentences  than  the  short 
childish  ones  of  many  teachers,  or  the  hackneyed  ones  of 
most  French  writers :  an  unintelligibleness  which  brings 
its  own  solution  by  mere  unaltered  repetition  exercises 
and  strengthens  the  mind.  Sometimes  exercise  even 
little  children  with  riddles  of  contradictory  words :  such 
as,  I  heard  this  with  my  eyes  ;  this  is  very  prettily  ugly. 

Do  not  fear  the  unintelligibleness  even  of  whole  sen- 
tences ;  your  mien,  your  accent,  and  the  ardent  desire  of 
understanding,  explain  one  half,  and,  with  the  assistance 
of  time,  the  other.  With  children,  as  with  the  Chinese 
and  men  of  the  world,  accent  is  half  the  language.  Re- 
member that  they  learn  to  understand  your  language 
much  sooner  than  to  speak  it,  just  as  we  do  Greek  or  any 
foreign  tongue.  Trust  to  the  deciphering  aid  of  time, 
and  of  the  context.  A  child  of  five  years  old  understands 
the  words  "  but,  indeed,  now,  on  the  contrary,  certainly  " ; 
but,  if  you  desire  an  explanation  of  them,  ask  the  father, 
not  the  child.  The  word  indeed  alone  would  puzzle  a  lit- 
tle philosopher.  If  the  child  of  eight  years  old  finds  his 
improved  language  understood  by  a  child  of  three,  why 
should  you  contract  yours  to  his  vocabulary?  Always 
employ  a  language  some  years  in  advance  of  the  child 


348  LEVANA. 

(men  of  genius  in  their  books  speak  to  us  from  the  van- 
tage-ground of  centuries) :  speak  to  the  one-year-old 
child  as  though  he  were  two,  and  to  him  as  though  he 
were  six ;  for  the  difference  of  progress  diminishes  in  the 
inverse  proportion  of  years.  Let  the  teacher,  especially 
he  who  is  too  much  in  the  habit  of  attributing  all  learning 
to  teaching,  consider  that  the  child  already  carries  half 
his  world,  that  of  mind,  —  the  objects,  for  instance,  of 
moral  and  metaphysical  contemplation,  —  ready  formed 
within  him;  and  hence  that  language,  being  provided 
only  with  physical  images,  cannot  give,  but  merely  illu- 
mine, his  mental  conceptions. 

Cheerfulness,  like  distinctness  in  conversation  with  chil- 
dren, should  be  imparted  to  us  by  their  cheerfulness  and 
distinctness.  We  may  learn  to  speak  from  them,  as  well 
as  teach  them  by  speaking ;  for  instance,  such  bold  and 
yet  correctly  formed  words  as  I  have  heard  from  three 
and  four  year  old  children :  "  the  beer-casker,  the  stringer, 
the  bottler,"  instead  of  the  maker  of  casks,  strings,  and 
bottles,  —  "  the  flying  mouse,"  certainly  much  better  than 
our  word  bat,  —  "  the  music  plays,"  —  "I  am  the  see-er- 
through,"  when  standing  behind  a  telescope,  —  "  Ah  ! 
look !    one  (on  the  clock)  is  already  come,"  &c. 

In  later  years  it  becomes  part  of  instruction  in  lan- 
guage to  show  the  living  foundation  of  the  colorless 
images  of  e very-day  speech.  A  young  man  uses  the 
expressions,  "  all  made  on  the  same  last,"  or  "  fishing  in 
troubled  waters  "  ;  and  when  he  finds  that  the  shoemaker 
really  uses  such  a  last,  and  that  fishing  in  troubled  water 
is  practised,  he  is  astonished  to  discover  that  a  real  fact  is 
the  foundation  of  the  transparent  image. 

Pestalozzi  commences  the  division  of  the  universe  into 
parts  by  that  of  the  body  into  limbs ;  because  it  is  in 


SPEECH.  349 

closest  and  most  important  connection  with  the  child,  and 
is  everywhere  composed  of  similar  parts,  which  is  not  the 
case  with  plants  or  utensils.  A  still  more  important  -ad- 
vantage is,  that  there  are  always  two  examples  of  it  in 
the  study ;  and  that  the  child,  between  /  and  thou^  be- 
tween the  larger  visible  limbs  of  his  teacher,  and  his  own 
smaller  ones,  sensible  only  to  the  touch,  can  always  pass 
from  one  object  to  another  and  compare  them  together. 
At  the  same  time,  Pestalozzi  will  not  only  divide  and 
illumine  the  waste  ether  with  clearly  marked  names,  as 
with  stars  ;  but,  while  he  teaches  the  child  to  collect  the 
subdivisions  under  their  division,  the  lesser  under  the 
greater  whole,  he  develops  the  capacity  of  retaining 
whole  series,  or  the  power  of  adaptive  combination, — 
of  which  hereafter. 

Fichte,  in  his  Discourses  to  the  German  nation,  attaches 
too  httle  value  to  the  naming,  and,  as  it  were,  A  B  C,  of 
external  objects  and  observations,  requiring  them  merely 
for  what  is  internal,  for  sensations ;  because  he  thinks 
that  the  naming  of  the  former  class  only  serves  the  child 
for  communication,  not  for  the  better  understanding  of  it. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that,  as  the  speechless  animal  floats 
about  in  the  external  world  as  in  a  dark,  bewildering 
ocean,  so  man  would  be  equally  lost  in  the  staxry  firma- 
ment of  external  perceptions,  did  he  not,  by  means  of 
language,  divide  the  confused  stars  into  constellations, 
and  thus  reveal  the  whole  in  parts  to  the  comprehension. 
Language  alone  illumines  the  vast  monotonously  colored 
chart  of  the  universe. 

Our  forefathers,  from  pedantic  and  economic  reasons, 
but  with  advantageous  results,  as  a  mental  gymnastic  and 
excitement,  ranked  a  foreign  language,  such  as  Latin, 
among  the  great  powers  of  education.     Certainly  the  die- 


350  LEVANA. 

tionary  of  foreign  words  develops  little,  except  by  teach- 
ing the  fine  shades  of  difference  among  our  own  :  but  the 
grammar,  as  the  logic  of  the  tongue, — the  first  philoso- 
phy of  reflection, — does  much;  for  it  carries  the  signs  of 
things  back  to  the  things  themselves,  and  compels  the 
mind,  turned  upon  itself,  to  observe  the  method  of  its 
observations,  that  is,  to  reflect,  or  at  least  to  take  firmer 
possession  of  the  sign,  and  not  to  confuse  it,  as  a  mere 
expression,  with  the  sensation  itself.  During  immaturity 
this  kind  of  knowledge  is  better  obtained  through  the 
grammar  of  a  foreign  language  than  through  that  of  our 
own,  which  is  more  indissolubly  blended  with  the  sensa- 
tion ;  hence  logically-cultivated  people  first  learned  to 
construct  their  own  language  by  a  foreign  one,  and 
Cicero  went  to  a  Greek,  sooner  than  to  a  Latin  school ; 
and  hence,  in  those  centuries  when  the  Greek  and  Latin 
languages  formed  the  whole  subject  of  learning,  the  intel- 
lect became  more  formal,  and  unsubstantial  logic  filled 
the  mind,  as  the  whole  scholastic  philosophy  proves. 
When  Huart  asserts  that  a  good  head  leai-ns  grammar 
with  the  most  difficulty,  he  can  only  mean,  unless  he  con- 
fuses dictionary  with  grammar,  a  head  formed  for  busi- 
ness or  art  rather  than  for  thought.  Every  good  gram- 
marian, the  Hebrew  Tacitus  Danz,  for  instance,  is  partly 
a  philosopher,  and  he  must  be  a  philosopher  who  writes 
the  best  grammar.  The  grammatic  analysis  of  the  old 
schools  only  differs  in  its  object  from  Pestalozzi's  visible 
series.  Consequently  a  foreign  language,  particularly  the 
Latin,  is  among  the  healthiest  early  exercises  of  the  power 
of  thinking. 

§  132. 

Since  writing  signifies  but  the  sign  of  things,  and  brings 
us  through  it  to  the  things  themselves,  it  is  a  stricter  iso- 


WRITING.  351 

lator  and  clearer  collector  of  the  ideas  than  even  speech 
itself.  Sound  teaches  quickly  and  generally ;  writing 
uninterruptedly  and  with  more  accuracy.  Writing,  from 
that  which  the  writing-master  teaches  to  that  which  ap- 
proaches the  province  of  the  author,  gives  clearness  to  the 
ideas.  We  will  not  here  lay  too  great  stress  on  the  fact 
that  the  letters  which  Sevigne  wrote  are  much  more  ele- 
gant than  those  she  dictated ;  or  that  Montesquieu,  who 
could  not  himself  write,  frequently  passed  three  hours 
before  anything  worthy  of  preservation  occurred  to  him, 
whence  many  deduce  the  curt  style  of  his  writings ;  but 
it  is  certain  that  our  representation  is  much  more  a  mental 
seeing  than  hearing,  and  that  our  metaphors  play  far  more 
on  an  instrument  of  color  than  of  sound,  and  therefore 
writing  which  lingers  under  the  eyes  must  assist  the  for- 
mation of  ideas  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  the  rapid 
flight  of  sound.  The  scholar,  indeed,  carries  it  so  far  that, 
when  he  reflects,  he  really  seems  to  read  a  printed  page  ; 
and  when  he  speaks,  to  give  a  little  declamation  out  of  a 
quickly  and  well-written  pamphlet. 

Let  boys  write  out  their  own  thoughts  sooner  than  copy 
yours,  so  that  they  may  learn  to  exchange  the  heavy- 
ringing  coin  of  sound  into  more  convenient  paper  money. 
And  let  them  be  spared  the  writing-texts  of  schoolmasters, 
containing  the  praises  of  industry,  of  writing,  of  their  mas- 
ter, or  of  some  old  prince ;  in  short,  subjects  about  which 
the  teacher  can  produce  nothing  better  than  his  pupils. 
Every  representation  without  some  actual  object  or  motive 
is  poison.  Since  some  real  occurrence  always  suggested 
to  men  of  genius,  such  as  Lessing,  Rousseau,  and  others, 
the  subject  of  their  fictions,  thus  occasional,  in  the  highest 
sense  of  that  word  ;  how  can  you  require  a  boy  to  dip  his 
pencil  in  the  airy  blue  of  indefiniteness,  and  therewith  so 


352  LEVANA. 

paint  the  vault  of  heaven  that  the  invisible  tint  shall  pro- 
duce the  color  of  Prussian  blue?  I  cannot  understand 
schoolmasters  !  Must  the  man,  even  in  childhood,  preach 
from  the  appointed  Sunday  text,  and  never  choose  one  for 
himself  in  Nature's  Bible?  Something  similar  may  be  said 
about  the  writing  of  open  letters  (an  unsealed  one  is  almost 
inevitably  half  untrue)  which  the  teachers  of  girls'  schools 
require,  in  order,  say  they,  to  exercise  their  pupils  in  epis- 
tolary style.  A  nothing  writes  to  a  nothing :  the  whole 
affair,  undertaken  by  the  desire  of  the  teacher,  not  of  the 
heart,  is  a  certificate  of  the  death  of  thoughts,  an  announce- 
ment of  the  burning  of  the  materials.  Happy  is  it  if  the 
commanded  volubility  of  the  child,  arising  from  coldness 
and  addressed  to  emptiness,  do  not  accustom  her  to  insin- 
cerity. If  letters  must  be  forthcoming,  let  them  be  written 
to  some  fixed  person,  about  some  definite  thing.  But  what 
need  of  "  so  much  ado  about  nothing,"  since  —  not  even 
excepting  political  or  literary  newspapers  —  nothing  can 
be  written  so  easily  as  letters  on  any  subject  when  there 
is  a  motive  for  them,  and  the  mind  is  fully  informed  of 
the  matter? 

The  writing  of  one  page  excites  the  desire  of  learning 
more  strongly  than  the  reading  of  a  whole  book.  Many 
readers  of  select  school  libraries  are  scarcely  able  to  write 
a  clear  and  good  account  of  a  fatal  accident,  and  a  request 
for  charitable  assistance,  for  a  weekly  newspaper.  And  it 
is  equally  true  that  many  writers  are  just  as  indifferent 
speakers :  they  resemble  many  great  merchants  in  Am- 
sterdam, who  have  no  warehouse,  but  only  a  writing-room; 
give  them  time,  however,  and  they  will  procure  the  goods 
by  writing.  Corneille  spoke  badly,  but  he  made  his  heroes 
declaim  excellently.  Regard  every  pupil  for  examination 
as  a  stammering  dumb  Corneille,  and  provide  him  a  room, 


ATTENTION.  353 

time,  and  a  pen ;  he  will  speak  by  these,  and  so  pass  a 
very  good  examination.  I  close  this  chapter  as  a  certain 
Indian  begins  his  book,  —  Blessed  be  the  man  who  in- 
vented writing! 


CHAPTER   III. 

ATTENTION,  AND    THE    POWER   OF    ADAPTIVE    COMBINATION. 
§133. 

BONNET  calls  attention  the  mother  of  genius,  but 
she  is  in  fact  her  daughter ;  for  whence  does  she 
derive  her  origin,  save  from  the  marriage  contracted  in 
heaven  between  the  object  and  the  desire  for  it  ?  Hence 
attention  can  really  be  as  little  preached  or  flogged  into  a 
person  as  ability.  Swift  in  a  musical  academy,  Mozart 
in  a  philosophical  lecture-room,  RafFaelle  in  a  political 
club,  Frederick  the  Great  in  a  cour  d^ amour,  —  could  you 
give  an  attentive  ear  to  these  different  men,  all  of  whom 
possess  genius,  are  of  mature  years,  and  have  thoughts 
about  the  important  matters  of  art,  science,  love,  and  poli- 
tics ?  And  do  you  expect  and  desire  it  in  children,  in  per- 
sons of  unripe  age  and  inferior  capacity  for  much  more  tri- 
fling objects?  But,  in  fact,  you  desire  that  your  individual 
attention,  which  exhibits  as  much  caprice  with  regard  to 
its  objects  as  that  of  a  man  of  genius,  should  be  acquired 
by  the  child,  and  that  your  narrowness  of  view  should  be 
shared  by  him. 

If  you  attach  reward  or  punishment  to  the  child's  atten- 
tion to  any  object,  you  have  put  another,  that  of  self-inter- 


354  LEVANA. 

est,  in  its  place,  rather  than  strengthened  the  mental  power 
or  excited  the  desire  of  improvement ;  at  most,  you  have 
but  labored  for  the  memory.  No  sensuous  pleasure  lines 
the  path  into  the  empire  of  mind  ;  hence  studying  for  a 
liveHhood  resembles  the  stone  by  whose  aid  the  diver 
sinks  more  rapidly  to  seek  pearls  for  his  master,  and 
which  the  aeronaut  takes  with  him  for  the  very  differ- 
ent purpose  of  rising  higher  towards  heaven  when  he 
casts  it  overboard. 

But  what  is  to  be  done  ?  So  teachers  always  ask,  in- 
stead of  first  asking.  What  is  to  be  avoided  ?  The  laws 
of  their  order  forbid  the  Jesuits  to  study  longer  than  two 
hours  ;  but  your  school  laws  command  little  children  to 
study,  that  is,  to  be  attentive,  as  long  as  older  people  can 
teach :  it  is  quite  too  much ;  especially  when  one  con- 
siders the  child's  senses  open  to  every  influence,  the 
cheerful  sounds  of  the  busy  market-place,  the  blossoming 
boughs  waving  round  the  school-room  windows,  the  nar- 
row strip  of  sunshine  on  the  dull  school-room  floor,  and 
the  delicious  certainty  on  Saturday  that  there  will  be  no 
lessons  in  the  afternoon. 

There  have  been  many  cases  in  which  the  author  of 
Levana  himself  has  resolved  to  lend  an  attentive  ear  to 
some  story,  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour  long,  so 
as  to  be  able  to  relate  it  afterwards :  he  did  inwardly 
what  he  could,  and  labored  to  maintain  the  closest  atten- 
tion ;  but  this  very  labor  gave  rise  to  incidental  thoughts  ; 
he  was  compelled  to  request  a  repetition  in  order  to  catch 
the  thread  of  the  story ;  and  then,  at  last,  after  all  this 
resolute  anxiety,  determination,  and  design,  he  had  ob- 
tained nothing  more  than  a  table  of  contents  of  the  story, 
which  he  could  enlarge  upon  in  the  proper  place.  Do 
you  think  it  easier  for  a  child  to  command  his  attention, 


ATTENTION.  355 

and  repress  weariness,  than  for  a  grown-up  man  who 
addresses  him  ?  It  is  possible  for  a  child  to  take  the 
greatest  interest  in  your  instruction,  but  not  just  to-day, 
nor  at  this  particular  window  ;  or,  perhaps,  because  he 
has  seen  or  tasted  some  novelty  ;  or,  perhaps,  because  his 
father  has  announced  either  a  country  ramble  or  a  con- 
finement ;  or,  because  his  former  inattention  has  met  its 
punishment,  and  the  child  now  thinks  far  more  of  the 
punishment  than  of  the  means  of  avoiding  it.  Human 
beings,  in  fact,  are  incapable  of  uninterrupted  attention 
(eternal  longing  may  be  much  more  truly  promised  than 
eternal  loving),  and  the  child's  attention  is  not  always 
identical  with  that  of  his  parents. 

If  novelty  be  confessedly  the  keenest  sharpener  of  the 
inner  ear,  the  forcing-house  of  every  plant,  why  do  teach- 
ers, after  constant  repetitions,  require  the  first  eagerness 
of  attention  from  the  young  souls  everywhere  surrounded 
by  new  worlds  ?  Do  you  suppose  their  pillow  is  a 
gilded  cushion  on  which  the  glass  is  rubbed  to  obtain 
electricity  ? 

If  it  be  difficult  to  place  ourselves  in  the  position  of 
persons  similarly  circumstanced,  how  much  more  difficult 
must  it  be  to  do  so  with  regard  to  persons  unlike  our- 
selves !  How  many  instances  are  there  of  teachers  hav- 
ing warmed  themselves  for  years  by  the  school-room 
stove,  without  remarking  or  remembering  anything  about 
the  raised  figures  by  which  the  manufacturer  endeavored 
to  display  his  taste  and  skill.  Let  every  reader  after  the 
perusal  of  these  lines  examine  his  apartment,  and  observe 
whether  he  does  not  become  conscious  of  twenty  new 
objects,  among  which  he  has  constantly  lived  without 
hitherto  being  aware  of  their  presence  !  Were  we  in- 
clined to  enter  into  more  minute  particulars,  it  would, 


356  LEVANA. 

among  other  examples,  be  easy  to  show  the  different 
effects  of  mere  writing-copies  on  a  child's  attention.  If 
he  have  the  same  words  to  copy  throughout  the  whole 
page,  each  line  will  be  worse  written  than  its  predeces- 
sor ;  but  if  the  copy  change  frequently,  he  will  have  a 
new  source  of  interest  and  attention  from  line  to  line ; 
still,  even  in  this  case,  novelty  will  exert  its  power  over 
the  attention,  and  the  first  word,  like  the  first  line,  will  be 
the  best  written.  Repetition,  else  the  mainspring  of 
instruction,  is  the  chief  destroyer  of  attention ;  because, 
in  order  to  give  attention  to  what  is  repeated,  you  must 
first  have  found  it  worthy  of  a  still  greater  exertion  of 
that  faculty. 

A  very  important  distinction  must  be  drawn  between 
the  power  of  attention  diffused  among  the  generality  of 
men,  and  that  appertaining  solely  to  men  of  genius. 

The  latter  can  only  be  recognized,  protected,  and  cher- 
ished, but  not  created.  Pay  attention,  O  teachers!  to 
the  attention  manifested  by  your  children,  so  that  you 
may  not,  to  the  injury  of  his  whole  future  life,  demand 
from  the  genius  who  astonishes  you  with  his  power  and 
his  brilliancy  the  very  opposite  qualities  to  those  he 
possesses  :  do  not  expect  a  painter's  eye  in  a  Haydn,  nor 
a  poem  from  an  Aristoteles.  Pay  attention  to  this,  and 
you  will  not  offer  to  immortal  love  an  ape  instead  of  a 
Psyche. 

This  instinct-hke  attention,  waiting  till  its  proper  object 
is  manifested,  explains  some  apparent  anomalies,  such  as 
that  the  deep  thinking  Thomas  Aquinas  in  his  youth  was 
called  a  cow,  and  that  the  mathematician,  Schmidt,  from 
incapacity  for  study,  or  business,  continued  a  mere  la- 
borer for  thirty-eight  years.  Good  trees  at  first  produce 
only  wood,  not  fruit.     Pure  silver  when  broken  seems 


ATTENTION.  357 

black.  Afterwards,  the  work  advances  all  the  easier  and 
the  quicker ;  and  while  information  and  talent  have  to 
raise  their  gifts  laboriously,  like  gold  out  of  deep  mines, 
genius  presents  his  like  jewels  gathered  out  of  loose  sand. 
On  the  other  hand,  common  every-day  attention  needs 
not  so  much  to  be  aroused,  as  to  be  distributed  and  con- 
densed ;  even  careless,  inattentive  children  possess  the 
faculty,  but  it  is  dissipated  upon  all  passing  objects.  The 
child  in  his  new  world  resembles  a  German  in  Rome,  a 
pilgrim  in  the  Holy  Land.  Attention  to  everything  is 
impossible  :  the  whole  of  no  ball  can  be  seen.  You  ele- 
vate the  passive  being,  before  whom  the  world  moves 
unnoticed,  into  an  active  one,  by  placing  some  one  object 
in  a  prominent  position  :  by  displaying  its  wonders  you 
excite  his  interest.  Perpetually  ask  children  Why  ?  The 
questions  of  the  teacher  find  more  open  ears  than  his 
answers.  You  can  elevate  him,  also,  as  Pestalozzi  rec- 
ommends, by  the  magnifying-glass  of  separation;  and 
then  again  by  restoring  it  as  before.  As  God,  according 
to  the  schoolmen,  knows  everything  because  he  made  it, 
teach  the  child  his  power  of  mental  creation ;  readiness 
of  attention  in  recognizing  things  will  then  follow  natu- 
rally. And  this  brings  me  to  the  succeeding  paragraphs 
on  the  power  of  adaptive  combination. 

§  134. 

The  old  notion,  that  mathematics  exercises  and  requires 
philosophical  accuracy  and  depth  of  thought,  and  that 
mathematics  and  philosophy  are  sisters,  has,  I  hope,  dis- 
appeared. With  the  exception  of  the  all-powerful  Leib- 
nitz, great  mathematicians,  such  as  Euler,  D'Alembert, 
and  even  Newton,  have  been  poor  philosophers.  The 
French  have   obtained  more  and  greater  mathematical 


358  LEVANA. 

than  philosophical  prizes  :  great  masters  of  numbers  and 
great  mechanicians  have  been  frequently  found  among 
the  people,  but  equally  great  philosophers  never ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  powerful  and  profound  philosophers, 
after  the  most  arduous  endeavors,  have  frequently  still 
remained  but  indifferent  mathematicians.  Among  chil- 
dren we  find  some  open  to  philosophical  instruction,  some 
only  to  mathematical.  This  judgment  of  experience  is 
explained  and  verified  by  Kant's  Critique.  The  mathe- 
matician contemplates  quantities,  the  philosopher  reflects 
upon  and  abstracts  from  them.  The  certainty  of  the 
former  is,  like  that  of  the  external  world,  a  present  real- 
ity, brought  about  by  no  logical  conclusion  :  it  cannot 
prove  anything,  but  merely  show  that  it  is  so  ;  and  if  the 
quantities  exceed  the  power  of  instantaneous  apprehen- 
sion (as  is  generally  the  case  even  in  the  simplest  arith- 
metic), they  are  proved  in  a  merely  mechanical  manner 
by  the  method.*  In  philosophy  there  is  no  such  con- 
viction by  the  truth  of  the  method,  but  only  by  perceiving 
the  truth  of  the  idea.  Malebranche  said  rightly,  the 
geometrician  does  not  love  truth,  but  the  discernment  of 
it  (1.  i.  ch.  2.),  or,  to  express  it  more  clearly,  not  its  exist- 
ence, but  its  proportions.  Philosophy,  on  the  contrary, 
will  search  into  existence  ;  it  places  itself  and  the  mathe- 
matician, —  which  is  what  he  is  incapable  of  doing,  —  the 
whole  world  within,  around,  and  above,  before  its  gaze. 
Hence  religion  and  poetry,  but  not  dead  mathematics, 
spread  living  fibres  far  and  deep  into  philosophy  ;  hence 
the  great  Kant  admitted  the  possibility  that  the  sciences 
of  number  and  measurement,  as  exponents  of  earthly  time 
and  observation,  might  have  no  more  truth  beyond  this 

*  I  at  once  perceive  that  2X2  =  4;   but  confidence  in  the  rule 
makes  m6  believe  that  319  X  5011  = 


ATTENTION.  359 

life,  whereas  he  never  supposed  this  to  be  possible  with 
regard  to  the  ideas  of  reason  and  morality. 

§  135. 

The  former  paragraph,  with  its  distinction  of  mathe- 
matics from  philosophy,  is  meant  to  introduce  nothing  but 
the  praise  of  Pestalozzi's  method  of  teaching,  which  leads 
the  child's  mind  straight  between  the  parallels  of  num- 
bers and  lines.  For  in  what  other  manner  can  you 
arouse  the  innate  desire  of  mental  progress  ?  The  im- 
pulses of  the  senses  excite  and  then  stupefy,  but  help  not 
to  produce  it.  To  overwhelm  the  mind  with  lessons, 
that  is,  with  mere  summaries  of  accounts,  resembles  the 
Siberian  custom  of  giving  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  to  infants :  to  teach  reflection  and  abstraction  is, 
in  fact,  to  tear  the  body  to  pieces,  and  lay  open  the 
springs  of  love  and  faith,  in  order  to  anatomize  the  child's 
heart  and  blood.  Moreover,  philosophy  begins  with  what 
is  highest  and  most  difficult ;  mathematics,  with  what  is 
nearest  and  easiest.  What,  then,  remains  ?  The  meta- 
physics of  the  eye  ;  the  knowledge  forming  the  boundary 
between  experience  and  abstraction ;  that  cool,  tranquil 
calculation  which  does  not  yet  inquire  about  the  three 
giant  rulers  of  knowledge,  —  God,  the  Universe,  and  our 
own  Soul ;  which  rewards  every  momentary  sowing  with 
a  harvest;  which  neither  excites  nor  represses  desires 
and  wishes,  and  yet  finds  on  every  spot  of  eai*th,  as 
in  a  copy-book,  examples  and  exercises ;  which,  unlike 
thought  and  poetry,  needs  fear  no  difference  of  result  from 
differences  in  heart  and  mind  ;  and  for  which  no  child  is 
too  young,  for  it,  like  him,  grows  up  from  the  smallest 
beginning. 

Therefore  Pestalozzi's  gradual  and  luminous  accumu- 


360  LEVANA. 

lation  of  arithmetical  and  geometrical  proportions  is 
right ;  it  is  teaching  to  carry  an  increasing  weight,  like 
Milo's  calf,*  which  may  at  last  serve  for  the  thank-offer- 
ing of.  an  Archimedes.  What  Pope  Sixtus  V.  roughly 
said,  "  that,  after  all,  asses  might  be  taught  arithmetic," 
and  the  well-known  remark  in  the  French  Encyclopsedia, 
that  some  imbecile  persons  have  learnt  to  play  chess 
well,  —  for  chess  is  a  mathematical  combination,  and  the 
chess-board  may  serve  as  a  test  of  mathematical  power,  — 
all  this  commends  the  wisdom  by  which  Pestalozzi  wrote 
over  life,  as  Plato  over  his  study,  "  The  geometrician 
alone  may  enter  here." 

Consequently,  the  reproaches  cast  against  the  Swiss, 
"  that  his  school  is  no  school  of  the  prophets,  nor  even  of 
philosophers,"  are,  in  fact,  eulogies ;  and  it  were  to  be 
regretted  if  he  could  show  the  falsity  of  the  reproaches. 
Our  hazy  and  inconstant  age,  fuller  of  dreams  than  of 
poems,  of  phantasms  than  of  imagination,  has  great  need 
of  the  clear,  accurate  eye  of  mathematics,  and  of  firm 
hold  upon  reality. 

And  what,  then,  has  it  done  towards  the  development 
of  the  mental  faculties  ?  A  great  thing  in  childhood :  it 
has  unfolded  the  power  of  adaptive  combination.  Since 
the  simple  beam  of  mental  activity  has  been  already 
broken  into  the  colors  of  many  intellectual  powers,  it  may 
be  permitted  me  to  name  one  more.  I  mean  that  power 
which  is  as  different  from  imagination,  which  only  par- 
tially embraces  a  subject,  as  from  fancy,  which  creates ; 
that  power  which  assists  the  philosopher  in  his  chains  of 
reasoning,  the  mathematician  in  his  calculations,  and 
every  inventor  in  his  efforts,  by  retaining  in  connection, 

*  The  athlete  Milo,  by  daily  carrying  a  growing  calf,  became  at  last 
strong  enough  to  carry  the  full-grown  ox. 


ATTENTION.  361 

and  presenting  in  order,  the  daily  increasing  masses  of 
ideas,  numbers,  lines,  and  images.  The  pupil  of  Pes- 
talozzi  exercises  no  creative  power  in  his  long  numerical 
equations,  {that  belongs  only  to  the  discoverer  of  the 
method,)  but  he  calls  into  play  his  faculties  of  examining 
and  surveying.  These  are  capable  of  unlimited  growth  : 
but  what  would  Newton,  the  mathematical  pole-star,  have 
become  in  an  ocean  of  books  ?  Probably  as  incompre- 
hensible to  others,  in  their  best  years,  as  he  was  to  him 
self  in  his  old  age  !  If  many  measure  the  course  of  ideas 
by  seconds ;  —  Bonnet  required  half  a  second  for  a  clear 
idea,  Chladen  only  three  thirds  to  recall  an  old  one, 
according  to  Haller's  Physiology ;  —  they  seem  only  to 
reckon  in  that  the  mental  perusal  of  previously  impressed 
thoughts ;  for  is  it  possible  to  mark  thought,  to  divide 
the  soft  breath  of  heaven  into  waves  ?  And  is  not  the 
vastest  idea  —  God,  or  the  Universe  —  as  truly  an 
instantaneous  flash  of  light,  as  the  poorest  idea,  even 
nothing  ? 

The  strengthening  of  the  power  in  question  might 
afterwards  be  renewed  with  advantage  to  many  sciences. 
In  some  cases,  for  instance,  what  great  advantage  would 
be  gained  from  having  thoroughly  understood,  and  being 
able  to  recall,  the  various  parts  of  a  watch,  —  from  such 
as  were  the  playthings  of  our  childhood  to  the  accurate 
repeater  of  half-quarters,  —  the  masterly  echo  of  time. 
This  power  may  be  prepared  for  the  most  opposite  efforts 
by  means  of  two  very  different  sciences ;  by  astronomy, 
for  the  comprehension  of  vast  masses ;  by  anatomy,  for 
that  of  the  smallest  portions  of  matter :  the  latter  re- 
quires an  unexpectedly  great  effort,  for  it  is  physically 
as  diflficult  either  for  the  finger  or  the  eye  to  embrace 
the  smallest  as  the  largest  object. 

16 


362  LEVANA. 

The  power  we  are  speaking  of  may  also  be  strength- 
ened by  gradually  compressing  a  long  historical  or  phi- 
losophical paragraph  into  an  epigram.  For  instance, 
suppose  this  to  be  the  sentence :  "  Popular  authors  do 
not  make  a  selection  among  their  thoughts,  but  write 
them  down  as  they  arise,  just  as,  in  most  states,  the 
monarchs  are  not  elected,  but  rule  in  order  of  birth.'* 
You  might  compress  it  thus :  "  Popular  authors  do  not 
permit  their  ideas  to  rule  according  to  the  choice  of 
reason,  but  according  to  the  natural  succession  of  birth." 
And  you  might  conclude  it  proverbially  thus :  "  In  the 
popular  brain  the  empire  of  ideas  is  hereditary,  not 
elective."  Of  course,  this  only  applies  in  the  education 
of  children ;  for  to  educated  readers  such  brevity  would 
be  wearisome. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

DEVELOPMENT    OF    WIT. 

§  136. 


"  TTNTIL  the  human  body  is  developed,  every  arti- 
\J  ficial  development  of  the  mind  is  injurious. 
Philosophical  strainings  of  the  understanding,  poetical 
ones  of  the  fancy,  destroy  those  very  faculties  in  the 
young  mind,  and  others  along  with  them.  But  the  de- 
velopment of  wit,  which  is  scarcely  ever  thought  of  for 
children,  is  the  least  hurtful,  because  its  efforts  are  easy 
and  momentary ;  the  most  useful,  because  it  compels  the 
new  machinery  of  ideas  to  quicker  motion ;  because,  by 
the  pleasure  of  discovery,  it  gives  increased  power  of 


WIT.  363 

command  over  those  ideas  ;  and  because,  in  early  years, 
this  quality,  either  in  ourselves  or  others,  particularly 
delights  by  its  brilliancy.  Why  are  there  so  few  invent- 
ors, and  so  many  learned  men,  whose  heads  contain 
nothing  but  immovable  furniture,  in  which  the  ideas 
peculiar  to  each  science  lie  separately  as  in  monks'  cells, 
so  that  when  their  possessor  writes  about  one  science, 
he  remembers  nothing  that  he  knows  about  the  rest? 
Why  ?  Solely  because  children  are  taught  more  ideas 
than  command  over  those  ideas,  and  because  in  school 
they  are  expected  to  have  their  thoughts  as  immovably 
fixed  as  their  persons. 

"  Schlozer's  historical  style  should  be  imitated  in  other 
sciences.  I  have  accustomed  my  Gustavus  to  hear  and 
to  understand,  and  so,  himself,  to  discover  the  resem- 
blances among  dissimilar  sciences.  For  instance,  all 
great  or  heavy  things  move  slowly ;  hence  Oriental 
monarchs,  the  Dalai-Lama,  the  sun,  do  not  move  at  all. 
Winkelmann  tells  us  that  the  wise  Greeks  walked  slow- 
ly ;  also  the  hour-finger  of  a  clock,  the  ocean  and  the 
clouds  in  fine  weather,  move  slowly.  Again,  men,  the 
earth,  and  pendulums  go  quicker  in  winter.  Or,  again, 
the  name  of  Jehovah,  of  Eastern  princes,  and  of  Rome's 
guardian  deity,  as  well  as  the  Sibylline  books,  the  most 
ancient  Christian  and  the  Catholic  Bible,  and  the  Veda, 
were  concealed.  It  is  indescribable  what  great  readiness 
and  pliabihty  of  thought  children  thus  attain.  Of  course 
the  information  which  you  wish  to  combine  must  first  be 
in  the  head.  But  enough !  the  pedant  understands  and 
does  not  approve  ;  and  the  less  prejudiced  reader  also 
says.  Enough ! " 

This  paragraph  follows  some  introductory  arguments 
in  the  Invisible  Lodge,  Book  I.  p.  260. 


364  LEVANA. 

§137. 
After  the  severe  rule  and  lesson-time  of  mathematics, 
the  sans-culottish  freedom  and  play-time  of  wit  best  fol- 
lows ;  and  if  the  former,  like  tlie  Neptunist,  forms  all 
tilings  coldly  and  slowly,  the  latter,  like  the  Vulcanist, 
ascribes  to  them  a  rapid  and  fiery  origin.  The  glance  of 
wit  passes  over  long  and  dark  series  of  ideas,  acquired  by 
the  power  of  preliminary  education,  in  order  afterwards 
to  create.  The  first  efforts  of  intellectual  growth  are 
witty.  And  the  passage  from  geometry  to  the  electric 
art  of  wit,  as  Lichtenberg,  Kastner,  D'Alembert,  and  the 
French  in  general,  prove,  is  a  natural  and  an  easy,  rather 
than  a  forced  march.  The  Spartans,  Cato,  Seneca,  Taci- 
tus, Bacon,  Young,  Lessing,  Lichtenberg,  are  examples 
how  the  full,  heavy,  thunder-clouds  of  knowledge  break 
out  in  the  lightning  of  wit.  Every  discovery  is  at  first 
an  incidence ;  and  from  this  moving  point  is  developed  a 
progressive  living  form.  The  intellectual  effort  doubles 
and  trebles  itself;  one  witty  idea  produces  another,  as  the 
new-born  Diana  assisted  at  the  birth  of  her  twin  brother 
Apollo. 

§138. 

It  is  easier  to  perceive  that  wit  precedes  reflection  and 
imagination,  in  the  nursery  and  the  school-room,  than  to 
see  how  to  produce  it.  The  great  majority  of  teachers 
will  object  that  they  do  not  themselves  possess  it,  and  that 
it  is  very  difficult  to  imitate  the  French  language-master 
who  helped  out  his  German  pupils  with  their  German, 
and  yet  knew  nothing  of  it.  Niemeyer  recommends  for 
this  purpose  charades  and  anagrams,  —  but  these  only 
serve  for  reflection  upon  language  ;  —  and  riddles,  — 
which,  though  better,  are  yet  but  witty  definitions  ;  —  and 
games  in  company,  the  majority  of  which,  however,  tend 


WIT.  365 

to  excite  a  spirit  of  rational  talking  rather  than  wit.  But 
can  no  witty  poems,  no  witty  anecdotes,  no  play  upon 
words,  be  discovered  ?  And  is  it  not  at  first  an  easy  mat- 
ter to  let  children  seek  moral  resemblances  in  physical 
substances,  until  their  pinions  have  grown  sufficiently 
strong  to  reach  from  mental  to  bodily  resemblances  ? 
(Vide  my  Introduction  to  ^Esthetics,  ii.) 

The  author  once  presided  for  three  years  over  a  small 
school,  comprising  ten  children  of  his  friends ;  the  best 
head  among  his  pupils,  of  different  ages  and  sexes,  had 
only  mastered  Cornelius  Nepos.  So,  along  with  the 
Latin  language,  German,  French,  and  English  had  to  be 
begun,  as  well  as  the  so-called  practical  sciences.  The 
diaries  of  this  eccentric  school,  —  during  whose  holiday 
hours  the  Invisible  Lodge  and  Hesperus  were  composed, 

—  along  with  the  confession  of  all  his  mistaken  views, 
belong  to  the  account  of  the  author's  life  hereafter  to  be 
published.  But  what  follows  will  find  its  right  place 
here.  After  half  a  year's  daily  instruction  for  five  hours, 
in  the  repetitions  of  which  such  witty  resemblances  as 
accident  offered  were  sought,  and  during  which  the  chil- 
dren had  the  Spartan  permission  to  attack  one  another, — 
by  which  means  when  out  of  school  they  were  preserved 
from  the  German  fault  of  over-sensitiveness,  —  the  author, 
to  encourage  the  children  and  confirm  the  habit,  made  a 
manuscript  book,  entitled  "  Anthology  of  my  Pupils'  Bon- 
mots,"  in  which  he  wrote  in  their  presence  every  idea  of 
a  not  merely  local  character.    A  few  examples  may  serve 

to  show  his  method.     "  A  boy,  G ,  twelve  years  old, 

the  cleverest  of  the  children,  endowed  with  mathematical 
and  satirical  talents,  said  as  follows:  'Man  is  imitated 
by  four  things,  an  echo,  a  shadow,  an  ape,  and  a  mirror ; 

—  the  windpipe,  the  bigoted  Spaniards,  and  ants  suffer  no 


366  LEVANA. 

foreign  substance  within  their  limits,  but  drive  it  out ;  — 
the  air-bag  of  the  whale,  out  of  which  it  breathes  when 
under  water,  is  the  water-stomach  of  the  camel,  whence 
it  drinks  when  there  is  no  other  water ;  —  the  conceal- 
ment of  the  Greeks  in  the  Trojan  horse  was  a  living 
transmigration  of  souls  ;  —  when  calculations  become 
longer,  logarithms  must  be  made  of  logarithms ;  —  mer- 
cury is  poison,  and  the  mythological  Mercury  conducted 
souls  both  into  heaven  and  hell,"  &c.,  &c.  The  same 
boy's  younger  brother,  ten  and  a  half  years  old,  said: 
"God  is  the  only  perpetuum  mobile ; — the  Hungarians 
preserve  both  their  wine  and  their  beehives  in  the  earth ; 
—  Constantinople  looks  beautiful  from  a  distance,  but 
ugly  when  near,  and  it  stands  upon  seven  hills ;  so  the 
planet  Venus  shines  gloriously  from  a  distance,  but  on 
approaching  nearer  you  find  it  uneven  and  full  of  steep 
mountains,"  &c.,  &c.  His  sister,  seven  years  old,  said : 
"  Every  night  we  are  seized  with  apoplexy,  but  in  the 
morning  we  are  well  again ;  —  the  world  is  the  body  of 
God ;  —  when  the  pulse  beats  quickly,  we  are  ill ;  when 
slowly,  well :  so  when  the  clouds  move  fast,  they  betoken 
foul  weather;  when  slowly,  fair  weather;  —  when  the 
Spartans  were  in  battle,  they  wore  red  cloaks,  so  that  the 
blood  might  not  be  seen ;  and  certain  Italians  wear  black 
ones,  so  that  you  may  not  see  the  fleas ;  —  my  school  is  a 
Quakers'  meeting-house  where  every  one  may  speak ;  — 
the  stupidest  people  dress  themselves  the  most  showily ; 
so  the  stupidest  animals,  insects,  are  the  gaudiest,"  &c. 
Sometimes  there  were  several  fathers  and  mothers  to  the 
same  idea ;  one  spark  drew  out  the  rest  too  quickly,  and 
then  they  all  justly  insisted  on  a  community  of  honor  in 
the  "Anthology  of  Bon-mots." 

Slavislmess  darkens  and  hides  all  the  salt-springs  of 


WIT.  367 

wit;  hence  those  teachers  who,  like  weak  princes,  can 
only  maintain  their  position  by  the  censorship  of  the 
press,  will  probably  do  wisely  to  choose  walks,  and  leave 
the  children  at  liberty  in  order  to  make  them  witty. 
The  writer  of  the  "  Anthology  of  Bon-mots  "  permitted 
his  scholars  to  exercise  their  wit  upon,  but  not  against, 
himself. 

A  learned  gentleman*  fears  danger  to  the  sense  of 
truth  from  these  exercises  of  the  wit,  though  he  has  no 
fault  to  find  with  the  things  themselves;  but  if  so,  he 
must  also  dread  that  something  better,  —  sentiment, — 
which  takes  the  place  of  truth  in  our  dark  age,  will  be 
falsified  by  the  forms  of  speech  which  teach  and  analyze 
its  expression  and  its  cause.  And  for  what  reason  shall 
witty  similes  be  held  incompatible  with  truth,  as  if  they 
also  did  not  really,  though  not  so  obviously,  illustrate  it  ? 
We  do  not  recommend  children  any  Olympic  games  of 
wit  but  such  as  are  German ;  and  the  Northern  nature 
itself  is  so  excellent  a  check  to  all  over-excitement,  that 
even  a  German  university  could  redress  the  balance  of 
the  strong  and  pungent  wit  of  two  such  men  as  Kastner 
and  Lichtenberg,  and  learnedly  held  out  against  them  in 
the  learned  journal  of  Gottingen. 

*  A  reviewer  of  Levana  in  "  Gottinger  Gelehrte-Anzeige,"  a  liter- 
ary journal,  so  called,  and  still  published  at  Gottingen. 


368  LEVANA. 


CHAPTER   V. 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  REFLECTION,  ABSTRACTION,  AND  SELF- 
KNOWLEDGE  ;  TOGETHER  WITH  AN  EXTRA  PARAGRAPH 
ON    THE    POWERS    OF    ACTION    AND    BUSINESS. 

§  139. 

I  MAY  be  most  brief  about  what  is  most  important ; 
for  time  and  libraries  are  sufficiently  prolix  about  it. 
The  reflected  contemplation  of  self,  which  conceals  and 
annihilates  the  external  and  superterrene  universe,  by 
guiding  and  lowering  man  into  his  own  inner  world,  now 
finds  its  mining-ladders  in  every  book-shop.  Moreover, 
our  modern  life,  broken  up  into  particles  by  the  search 
after  pleasure,  and  destitute  of  any  great,  active  aims  to 
unite  mind  and  matter,  is  enough,  without  further  cause, 
to  make  every  one  live  within  himself,  and  forget  the 
universe  until  some  shock  to  his  nerves  of  feeling  pain- 
fully reminds  him  of  existence.  If  any  men  of  the 
present  age  are  of  a  poetical  nature,  life  quickly  becomes 
a  desert  to  them,  in  whose  undulating  air,  as  in  that  of 
other  deserts,  objects  appear  both  wavering  and  gigantic. 
If  they  are  of  a  philosophical  disposition,  they  fancy  the 
ideal  garden-ladder  against  which  they  lean  to  be  a  fruit- 
tree,  its  dead  steps  living  branches,  and  mounting  them  to 
be  gathering  fruit.  Hence  self-destruction  soon  follows 
the  philosophical  destruction  of  the  world.  Hence  there 
are  more  lunatics  and  fewer  poets  than  formerly:  the 
philosopher  and  the  madman  ceaselessly  point  with  the 
left-hand  index  finger  to  the  right  hand,  and  cry  out 
"Object,  — Subject!" 

Consequently,  in   philosophical   and   poetical  natures, 
always  endeavor  to  postpone  the  reflecting  observation  of 


REFLECTION,    ABSTRACTION,    ETC.        369 

self  until  the  glowing  season  of  the  passions,  so  that  the 
child  may  garner  and  preserve  a  fresh,  steadfast,  and 
earnest  life. 

Children  of  common  and  merely  active  dispositions, 
who  do  not  so  readily  lose  sight  of  the  outer  works  of  the 
world,  may  be  advanced  five  years  earlier,  by  the  wheels 
of  logic,  physiology,  and  transcendental  philosophy,  into 
the  citadel  of  the  soul,  so  that  they  may  learn  thence  to 
contemplate  their  course  of  life.  The  inner  world  is  the 
remedy  or  antidote  for  the  man  of  business ;  as  the  exter- 
nal universe  is  for  the  philosopher.  Poetry,  as  the  happy 
union  of  both  worlds,  promotes  the  higher  welfare  of 
both ;  as,  by  it,  that  healthful  reflection  and  abstraction 
are  attained  which  raise  man  above  want  and  time  to  a 
nobler  view  of  life. 

§  140. 

This  is  a  suitable  place  to  speak  of  the  development  of 
the  faculties  for  business,  the  sense  of  the  man  of  the 
world  which,  in  contradistinction  to  reflection,  is  a  media- 
tor between  matter  and  mind ;  but  it  serves  to  mix  rather 
than  to  combine  them  indissohibly.  This  sense  for  the 
objects  of  sense,  this  presence  of  mind  for  what  is  exter- 
nally present,  a  quality  so  gloriously  perfect  in  heroes, 
creates  or  annihilates  things  by  the  quickest  combinations 
of  such  dissimilar  materials  as  external  and  internal  ob- 
servations, or  sensations  and  ideas,  by  a  simultaneous 
exercise  of  comprehension,  foresight,  and  physical  power. 
Like  the  two-headed  eagle  in  the  fable,  which  watched 
with  one  head  while  it  took  nourishment  with  the  other, 
the  man  of  the  world  must  look  at  once  within  and  with- 
out, unblinded  by  what  is  within,  unalai'med  by  what  is 
without ;  and  he  must  stand  upon  a  point  which,  though 
IG*  X 


370  LEVANA. 

he  himself  move,  yet  never  alters  the  circle  nor  changes 
its  position. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  provide  a  palaestra  for  the  develop- 
ment of  this  power  suited  to  boys ;  they  must  contend 
with  the  only  world  they  have  about  them,  —  that  of 
education.  It  is  not  a  fighting-school  they  must  pass 
through,  —  for  as  yet  they  should  have  no  enemies,  —  but 
they  may  run  a  practising  gauntlet  against  what  lies  in 
their  way,  and  war  upon  things,  not  men.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  teacher  may  find  them  the  needful  oppor- 
tunities. 


CHAPTER    VI. 


ON  THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  RECOLLECTION, NOT  OF  THE 

MEMORY. 

§  141. 

THE  difference  between  recollection  and  memory  is 
insisted  upon  by  moralists  more  than  by  writers  on 
education.  Memory,  a  receptive,  not  a  creative  faculty, 
is  subjected  to  physical  conditions  more  than  all  other 
mental  powers ;  for  every  kind  of  weakness  (direct  and 
indirect,  as  well  bleeding  as  intoxication)  impairs  it,  and 
dreams  interrupt  it ;  it  is  not  subject  to  the  will,  is  pos- 
sessed by  us  in  common  with  the  beasts ;  and  can  be  most 
effectually  strengthened  by  the  physician :  a  bitter  stom- 
achic will  increase  it  more  than  a  whole  dictionary  learnt 
by  heart.  For  if  it  gained  strength  by  what  it  receives, 
it  would  grow  with  increasing  years,  that  is,  in  proportion 
to  its  wealth  in  hoarded   names;   but  it  can  carry  the 


RECOLLECTION.  371 

heaviest  burdens  most  easily  in  unpractised  youth,  and  it 
holds  those  so  firmly  that  they  appear  above  the  gray 
hairs  of  age  as  the  evergreens  of  childhood. 

§142. 

On  the  contrary,  recollection,  the  creative  power,  as  free 
to  call  forth  or  to  discover  a  consequence  from  the  given 
ideas  of  memory,  as  wit  or  imagination  are  from  their 
own  stores ;  this  exercise  of  the  will  denied  to  beasts, 
which  belongs  chiefly  to  the  mind,  and  therefore  grows 
with  its  growth ;  this  faculty  comes  within  the  sphere  of 
the  educator.  Hence,  memory  can  be  iron,  recollection 
only  quicksilver,  and  the  graving-tool  acts  corrosively 
only  on  the  former.  The  division  of  this  power  into 
memory  for  words  and  memory  for  things,  is,  therefore, 
erroneous,  at  least  in  expression.  He  who  can  retain  in 
his  head  a  page  of  Hottentot  words  will  certainly  much 
more  easily  retain  a  volume  of  Kant ;  for  either  he  un- 
derstands it,  —  and  then  every  idea  calls  up  an  associated 
idea  more  readily  than  a  word  can  a  perfectly  dissimilar 
word, — or  he  does  not  understand  it;  and  then  he  merely 
retains  a  philosophical  vocabulary,  and  uses  it  as  well  in 
every  disputation,  or  for  every  combination,  as  many 
renowned  students  of  the  Critique  already  prove.  But 
memory  for  things  does  not  presuppose  memory  for 
names ;  but  only  because,  instead  of  being  called  memory 
for  things,  it  ought  to  be  called  recollection. 

Recollection,  hke  every  other  mental  power,  can  only 
work  according  to  the  laws  of  association;  not  sounds, 
but  things,  that  is  to  say,  thoughts,  educate.  Read  a  vol- 
ume of  history  to  a  boy,  and  compare  the  copious  abstract 
he  can  furnish  of  that  with  the  miserable  remnant  he 
could  collect  from  a  page  of  Humboldt's  Mexican  words 


372  LEVANA. 

which  you  had  read  aloud  to  him.  Plattner  remarks  in 
his  Anthropology,  that  things  merely  in  juxtaposition  are 
retained  with  more  difficulty  than  things  coming  in  se- 
quence :  an  animal,  as  it  seems  to  me,  would  experience 
the  very  reverse ;  and  for  this  reason :  memory  applies 
to  juxtaposition,  recollection  to  sequence,  because  it,  and 
not  the  former,  excites  to  mental  activity  by  causation, 
or  some  other  association  of  ideas.  Pythagoras  recom- 
mended his  pupils  each  evening  to  recall  the  events  of 
the  day,  not  solely  as  an  act  of  self-mortification,  but  also 
as  a  means  of  strengthening  the  recollection.  Kalov 
knew  the  whole  Bible  by  heart ;  Barthius,  when  but  in 
his  ninth  year,  Terence ;  Sallust,  Demosthenes ;  and 
Scaliger  learned  Homer  in  twenty-one  days :  but  then 
these  are  books  full  of  intimately  associated  words,  not 
mere  dictionaries ;  a  whole  library  with  all  its  volumes  is 
easier  to  retain,  —  for  the  connection  assists  the  recollec- 
tion, r— than  a  short  list  of  them.  When  D*Alembert 
makes  the  easy  retention  of  a  poem  a  proof  of  its  excel- 
lence, his  position  loses  something  of  novelty,  but  gains  in 
truth  by  the  versus  memoriales,  mnemonic  verses,  and  the 
laws  of  the  ancient  lawgivers  promulgated  in  verse.  He, 
in  other  words,  observes,  that  the  recollection  is  assisted 
by  the  close  connection  of  the  parts,  a  quality  peculiarly 
possessed  by  good  poems.  Hence  the  Abbe  Delille 
rightly  regards  his  poems  as  better  than,  for  instance,  his 
translated  originals ;  not  only  because  he  has  them  in  his 
mind  before  he  transcribes  them,  and  so  can  sell  the  pub- 
lisher his  manuscript  full  of  the  final  rhymes,  to  which  he 
afterwards  attaches  the  rest  of  the  verse,  —  but  also  be- 
cause he  cannot  remember  much  of  Milton  or  Virgil, 
although  he  has  read  both  several  times. 

To  strengthen  the  combining  power  of  the  recollection, 


RECOLLECTION.  373 

accustom  your  children  from  their  earhest  years  to  relate 
to  you  some  passage  in  history,  or  a  tale ;  and  for  this 
purpose  the  most  diffusely  told  story  is  the  best.  Fur- 
ther, if  you  wish  your  child  to  advance  rapidly,  both  in 
a  foreign  language  and  in  power  of  recollection,  do  not 
set  him  to  learn  words,  but  a  chapter  which  he  has  trans- 
lated a  few  times :  here  recollection  assists  the  memory ; 
words  are  remarked  in  their  verbal  connection,  and  the 
best  dictionary  is  a  favorite  book. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  remember  a  sinprle  thinoj  than 
many  joined  together.  The  example  of  Lessing,  who 
always  devoted  himself  exclusively  for  a  time  to  one  par- 
ticular branch  of  knowledge,  proves  the  truth  of  Locke's 
remark,  that  the  way  to  become  learned  is  to  pursue  one 
subject  only  for  a  considerable  period.  The  reason  lies  in 
the  systematic  nature  of  the  recollection ;  it  is  certain  that 
a  science  will  adhere  more  closely  which  has  had  time  to 
spread  its  roots  in  the  soil.  Hence  nothing  so  much  en- 
feebles the  recollection  as  leaps  from  one  branch  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge  to  another ;  as  men  become  forgetful 
who  have  the  management  of  several  dissimilar  offices. 
Let  your  child  pursue  one  and  the  same  branch  of 
knowledge  uninterruptedly  for  a  month ;  what  a  proba- 
bility of  growth  in  twelve  branches  during  the  year! 
The  dislike  of  the  sameness  will  soon  be  lost  in  the 
pleasure  of  progress ;  and  the  science  thus  grounded  and 
daily  increasing  its  limits  will  in  time  present  a  variety 
of  flowers.  .  Certainly  the  foundations  of  every  science 
should  be  laid  and  worked  upon  for  some  time  without 
the  intermixture  of  any  other ;  then  a  new  one  may  be 
commenced,  and  the  other  repeated  for  a  change;  and 
thus  we  may  proceed,  until,  after  the  careful  erection  of 
the  scaffolding,  we  may  begin  the  building,  and  not  till 


374  LEVANA. 

many  of  these  are  completed  can  a  street  be  formed. 
For  a  contemporaneous  multiplicity  of  sciences  is  not 
adapted  to  early  youth,  which  is  only  capable  of  embra- 
cing an  individual  subject,  —  but  to  maturer  age,  which 
can  compare  them  together. 

Recollection  by  association  of  place,  —  falsely  called 
memoria  localis,  —  this  play-room  of  the  so-called  arts  of 
memory,  —  shows  the  necessity  of  connection.  For  this 
reason  travelling  enfeebles  local  recollection.  A  prison, 
said  a  Frenchman,  is  a  memoria  localis  ;  and  many,  Bas- 
sompierre  for  example,  have  therein  written  their  memoirs 
solely  on  the  walls — of  the  skull. 

§  143. 

But  there  is  one  mental  talisman  even  for  the  memory, 
—  I  mean  the  charm  of  the  object.  A  woman  retains 
the  titles  of  books  with  as  much  difficulty  as  her  learned 
husband  does  the  names  of  fashionable  dresses ;  an  old 
philologist,  oblivious  of  other  things,  does  not  suffer  an 
unknown  word  to  escape  his  verbal  treasure-house. 

No  one  has  a  memory  for  everything,  because  no  one 
feels  an  interest  in  everything.  And  the  physical  powers 
set  bounds  even  to  the  strengthening  influence  of  desire 
on  the  memory,  —  think  of  that  w^hen  with  children,  — 
for  instance,  if  a  Hebrew  bill  of  exchange  for  a  thousand 
pounds  were  promised,  on  condition  of  demanding  its  pay- 
ment in  the  very  words  of  the  document,  as  once  read 
aloud,  everybody  would  try  to  remember  them,  but,  unless 
he  were  a  Jew,  the  words  and  the  form  would  fail  him. 

If  grown-up  people  find  italics  and  German-text  useful 
to  mark  their  memoranda,  I  should  think  it  possible  that 
little  children  also  might  require  some  such  assistance. 
But  teachers  instigate  them  to  make  uninterrupted  marks, 


RECOLLECTION.  375 

and  then,  when  they  have  printed  whole  books  (or 
lessons)  in  italic  or  German-text,  ask,  with  wonder, 
"  whether  it  is  possible  a  thing  can  be  overlooked,  written 
in  different  or  large  text  ? "  Permit  something  to  be 
forgotten,  when  you  desire  them  to  remember  so  much. 

Resemblance,  the  rudder  of  recollection,  is  the  danger- 
ous rock  of  memory.  Among  related  objects,  only  one 
can  exert  the  charm  of  novelty  or  priority.  Thus,  the 
correct  spelling  of  very  similar  words,  such  as  contemn 
condemn^  were  where,  of  off,  is  more  difficult  than  that  of 
totally  different  ones.  There  are  few  aged  men  who 
remain  at  home,  and  are  able  to  remember  or  relate  the 
little  circumstances  of  their  monotonous  life  for  a  fortnight ; 
by  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  daily  echo,  the  history 
of  their  lives  is  as  much  shortened  as  life  itself  is  pro- 
longed. The  history  of  the  fourth  or  fifth  ten  years  of 
life  shrivels  up  into  a  note,  compared  with  the  chapter  on 
the  fourth  or  fifth  year.  An  eternity  might  at  last  be- 
come shorter  than  a  moment. 

It  is  incomprehensible  to  me,  how  people  fancy  they  can 
teach  children  to  read  or  write  the  letters  easily  by  point- 
ing out  their  resemblances,  and  laying  before  them  at 
once  i  y,  c  e,  or,  in  writing,  i  r,  h  k,  &c.  The  very  oppo- 
site plan  ought  to  be  pursued  ;  i  should  be  placed  next  g, 
V  next  z,  0  next  r ;  the  contrast,  like  light  and  shadow, 
make  both  prominent ;  until  reflected  lights  and  half 
shades  can  separate  them  anew  from  each  other.  The 
fast-rooted  dissimilarities  serve  at  last  to  hold  fast  the  re- 
semblance that  exists  among  them.  So  the  old  plan  of 
teaching  spelling  by  lists  of  words  alphabetically  arranged 
is  bad,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  simi- 
lar sounds  ;  whereas  that  of  classing  together  derivatives 
from  the  same  Latin  or  Greek  word  assists  the  remem- 


376  LEVANA. 

brance,  because  the  radical  word  does  not  alter.  If  in- 
struction in  arts  of  memory  had  a  place  in  the  Levana,  I 
might  suggest  the  following  sportive  methods :  daily 
drawing  tickets  in  a  spelling-lottery,  where  each  child 
would  not  only  observe  his  own,  but  his  companions' 
words  ;  every  pupil  might  each  day  receive  a  foreign  word 
of  parole,  wherewith  to  greet  his  teacher :  or  the  scholar 
might  be  set  to  print  a  short  Latin  sentence,  with  its  trans- 
lation ;  or  he  might  be  told  to  write  the  same  word  in 
various  styles  of  penmanship :  in  dates,  for  which  these 
methods  are  much  more  necessary  than  for  words,  the 
teacher  might  give  the  years  written  merely  with  conso- 
nants, because  the  addition  of  the  necessary  vowels  would 
impress  the  whole  line  on  the  memory ;  and  he  might  cut 
wortiiless  maps  into  sections,  allow  his  pupils  to  take  them 
home,  and  expect  them  to  be  brought  back  joined  togeth- 
er in  the  fashion  of  architectural  games  ;  and  so  forth  :  it 
were,  indeed,  a  miserable  prospect  if  hundreds  of  such 
arts  did  not  occur  to  the  teacher.  I  myself,  however, 
would  not  choose  any  of  these  proposed  methods  of  catch- 
ing and  yoking  attention,  but  would  adopt  that  of  steady 
industry.  I  do  believe  that  a  rod  would  help  a  creeping 
child  to  walk  better  than  crutches  under  his  arms,  which 
at  first  carry,  but  afterwards  are  carried  by  him.  Yea 
yea,  nay  nay,  are  the  best  double  watchwords  for  chil- 
dren. 

§144. 

Artemidorus,  the  grammarian,  forgot  everything  when 
he  was  terrified.  Fear  cripples  the  memory,  both  by  pro- 
ducing physical  weakness  and  mental  irritation  ;  the  frost 
of  cold  fear  chains  every  living  power  which  it  approach- 
es.    The   bonds  are  removed   even  from   the  criminal, 


RECOLLECTION. 


377 


when  he  is  to  speak  and  be  judged !  And  yet  many 
teachers  put  fresh  fetters  on  their  pupils  before  they  hear, 
and  threaten  before  they  teach  them.  Do  they  suppose 
the  terrified  soul  can  observe  or  remember  anything 
better  than  the  pain  of  fear,  and  the  blows  of  the  stick  ? 
Can  the  free  glance  of  the  mental  eye  coexist  with  the 
abject  slavery  of  the  heart?  Will  the  poor  sinner  on 
the  scaffold  embrace  the  beauties  of  the  surrounding  land- 
scape, and  in  contemplating  them  forget  the  impending 
axe  ? 


EIGHTH   FRAGMENT. 


Chap.  I.  Beauty  limited  to  the  Outward  Sense,  ^  145,  146;  to  the 
Inner  Sense,  §§  147, 148.  —  Chap.  II.  Classical  Education,  ^  149, 
150. 


CHAPTER    I. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  SENSE  OF  BEAUTY. 


§145. 

USE  the  expression  sense  of  beauty  instead 
of  taste  ;  taste  for  the  subhme,  sounds  as  badly 
as  smell  for  the  sublime.  The  French  publish 
one  of  the  best  instructions  on  taste,  under  the 
title  AlmancLch  des  Gourmands.  Further ;  the  sense  of 
beauty  is  not  the  same  as  the  instinctive  desire  to  express 
beauty  ;  the  development  and  improvement  of  this  latter 
faculty  belongs  properly  to  schools  of  art.  If  your  boy, 
even  in  the  school-room,  is  taught  to  produce,  instead  of 
only  to  feel  and  see,  beautiful  forms  and  beautiful  thoughts, 
he  is  as  much  spoiled  as  if  he  were  a  father  before  being 
a  lover.  Nothing  is  more  dangerous,  either  for  art  or 
heart,  than  the  premature  expression  of  feeling ;  many  a 
poetic  genius  has  been  fatally  chilled  by  delicious 
draughts  of  Hippocrene  in  the  warm  season  of  youth. 
The  feelings  of  the  poet  especially  should  be  closely  and 
cooUy  covered,  and  the  hardest  and  driest  sciences  should 


SENSE    OF    BEAUTY.  379 

retard  the  bursting  blossoms  till  the  due  spring-time. 
Pope,  when  a  boy,  wrote  poems  of  sentiment ;  when  a 
man,  epigrams.  It  is  said  that  every  clever  man,  such  as 
Leibnitz  and  Kant,  for  instance,  must  have  written  verses 
in  his  youth :  this  may  be  very  true  of  him  who  writes 
none  in  raaturer  life  ;  the  philosopher,  the  mathematician, 
the  statesman,  may  begin  where  the  poet  ends,  and  vice 
versa  !  The  poet  is  the  only  one  who  reveals  the  most 
secret,  the  holiest,  and  the  tenderest  aspirations  of  human- 
ity ;  let  him  then  attain  the  full  stature  of  his  model 
before  he  copies  it.  Let  him,  like  the  beautiful  white 
butterfly,  first  live  on  the  leaves  of  the  schools,  and  unfold 
his  wings  when  the  flowers  hold  honey. 

§  146. 

Children,  like  women,  always  kindly  disposed  towards 
pedants,  would  not  think  it  utterly  ridiculous  if  one  at- 
tempted, for  instance,  to  instil  into  a  boy  admiration  for 
a  girl's  beautiful  features  by  displaying  drawings  of  hid- 
eous noses,  lips,  and  necks,  and  along  with  them  beautiful 
paintings  of  the  same  parts,  so  that  when  the  young  man 
left  the  school  of  design,  he  might  at  once  fall  in  love  with 
a  beautiful  woman  as  judiciously  as  a  simpleton  who  had 
never  been  to  school. 

Something  very  similar  is  done  by  those  teachers  who 
try  to  educate  the  sense  of  the  sublime  ;  which,  however, 
is  not  increased,  but  diminished,  by  the  given  examples 
of  sublimity.  The  circumnavigator  of  the  world  does  not 
think  the  sea  so  sublime  as  does  his  wife,  who  views  it 
only  from  the  coast ;  the  stars  come  at  last  to  look  smaller 
in  the  naked  eye  of  an  astronomer  than  in  ours. 

In  fact,  men  want  to  educate  everything  (themselves 
excepted)  which  will  certainly  educate  itself;  and  they 


38o  LEVANA. 

do  this  the  more  earnestly  because  the  result  is  certain 
and  irresistible,  as  in  walking,  seeing,  tasting,  &c. :  but 
for  the  sense  of  artistic  beauty,  which  peculiarly  needs 
education,  schools  are  rarely  built. 

A  child  may  be  conducted  into  the  artistic  realm  of 
beauties  appreciable  by  the  outward  senses,  such  as  paint- 
ing, music,  architecture,  earlier  than  into  that  of  beauties 
appreciable  only  by  the  mind,  such  as  poetry.  Above  all 
things,  educate  the  German  eye,  which  is  so  far  behind 
the  German  ear.  Conceal  from  him  every  distortion  of 
shape  or  drawing,  —  one  might  add  of  the  streets,  if 
it  were  possible  to  hide  the  grotesque  appearance  of 
our  houses,  dresses,  and  ornaments,  or  rather  disligure- 
ments,  —  and  surround  his  beauteous  age  with  beauty. 
The  example  of  the  critically  correct  Italians  proves 
that  an  artist's  hand  is  not  the  necessary  accompaniment 
of  an  artist's  eye.  Open  a  child's  eye,  more  than  his 
heart,  to  the  beauties  of  nature ;  the  latter  opens  naturally 
in  its  proper  season,  and  sees  farther  and  more  beauties 
than  those  you  place  before  it.  Unfortunately  little  can 
be  accomplished  in  this  direction  by  your  unaided  efforts  ; 
only  the  state  —  which,  however,  loves  better  to  carve 
its  wood  into  parade-beds  than  cradles  of  art  —  can  pro- 
vide true  education  for  the  eye,  which  is  best  taught  by 
streets,  temples,  and  gardens.  Must  royalty  and  art  be 
everywhere  as  far  distant  from  each  other  as  the  Sun  and 
Venus,  —  a  space  which  a  cannon-ball  would  require  sev- 
enteen years  to  traverse  ?  The  former  paragraph  clearly 
excludes  poets  from  the  proposed  school  of  art.  A  great 
poetic  gallery,  filled  with  novices,  gathered  together  for 
the  express  purpose  of  poetizing,  could  at  most  but  fur- 
nish poems  upon  poetry  and  poets,  in  short,  but  mock- 
heroic  imitations  ;  an  evil  which  the  acquirement  of  tech- 


SENSE    OF    BEAUTY.  381 

nical  facility,  the  great  advantage  of  a  school  for  art,  does 
not  compensate.  A  true  poet  must,  like  Shakespeare  and 
Cervantes,  have  struggled  with  life  and  all  its  conditions  ; 
then  he  may  take  the  pencil,  not  merely  to  lay  color  by 
color,  but  to  paint  his  soul  upon  the  canvas.  If  an  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  poems  led  to  writing  poems,  actors 
ought  to  have  written  the  best  plays. 

An  artistic  school  for  the  ear  is  less  required  from 
deficiency  of  teachers,  patterns,  and  energy,  than  fi'om 
a  superfluity  of  them,  for  sometimes  the  teachers  will 
drown  one  another,  though  at  the  risk  of  being  them- 
selves out  of  tune.  Fortunately  it  is  more  difficult  to 
change  or  destroy  the  simple  taste  of  the  hearing,  than  of 
the  seeing  or  reading,  pubUc.  Behind  the  most  sensitive 
ear  the  heart  always  remains  open  to  the  simplest  melo- 
dies :  the  virtuoso  alone  is  his  own  empoisoner. 

§  147. 

If  the  art  of  poetry  have  been  pronounced,  and  with 
justice,  to  embrace  all  human  nature,  to  be  the  Venus 
girdle  which  enchantingly  combines  the  most  opposite 
powers,  the  most  graceful  alternate  transformation  of 
form  into  subject,  and  this  again  into  that,  like  the 
candle  whose  flame  assumes  a  shape,  and  yet  through 
which  the  wick  is  visible  ;  if  this  be  so,  we  must  indeed 
wonder  that  the  study  of  this  unity  in  plurality  should  be 
appointed  for  that  time  of  life  in  which  variety  is  small, 
and  the  power  of  combining  it  weak,  or  even  erring. 
Must  not  children  resemble  nations  on  whom  the  sun 
of  beauty  first  shone  after  the  tempest  of  their  wants  was 
stilled?  And  does  not  poetry,  the  bridal  ornament  of 
Psyche,  require  her  to  be  full-grown  and  a  bride  ?  Be- 
fore the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  year,  before  the  time  of 


382  LEVANA. 

opening  manhood,  which  throws  a  romantic  splendor 
round  sun,  and  moon,  and  spring,  and  sex,  and  poetry, 
the  child  regards  poetical  flowers  as  so  many  dried  medi- 
cinal herbs.  The  error  of  prematurely  introducing  a 
child  to  the  treasures  of  poetry  can  only  arise  from  the 
SBSthetic  mistake  of  believing  the  spirit  of  poetry  to  con- 
sist less  in  the  whole,  than  in  its  variously-scattered,  daz- 
zling charms  of  sound,  pictures,  events,  and  feelings ;  for 
these,  a  child  has  naturally  a  ready  ear.  Rhymers  and 
verse- writers  may,  indeed,  play  a  useful  part  at  an  early 
age.  Rhyme  delights  both  the  most  uncultivated  and  the 
youngest  ear ;  and  the  harmony  of  full-sounding  prose 
will  soon  melt  the  little  soul.  Instructive  poetry,  resem- 
bling circular  light-holders,  also  is  good.  Songs,  too,  are 
passable.  Tales,  particularly  Oriental  tales,  the  Arabian 
Nights'  Entertainments,  (those  romantic  summer  nights, 
so  short  whether  to  men  or  children ! )  will  arouse  the 
dreaming  poetic  heart  with  gentle  charms  until  it  is  after- 
wards strong  enough  to  comprehend  the  lofty  lyric  ode, 
the  wide-extended  level  epic,  the  thronging  passions  of 
tragedy. 

When  manhood  and  womanhood  have  kindled  the  tran- 
sitory joy-fires  of  life,  and  all  their  powers  seek  unity  and 
the  future,  then  let  the  poet  approach,  and  be  the  Orpheus 
who  animates  dead  bodies,  as  well  as  tames  wild  beasts. 
But  what  poets  shall  the  teacher  bring  ? 

§  148. 

Our  own !  Neither  Greek,  nor  Roman,  nor  Hebrew, 
nor  Indian,  nor  French,  but  German.  Let  the  English- 
man select  English  poets,  and  every  nation  its  own. 
Only  when  we  call  to  mind  the  poverty  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  whose  seeming  corpse  the  miracles  of  Greece  and 


SENSE    OF    BEAUTY.  383 

Rome  reanimated,  can  we  comprehend  the  existing  ab- 
surdity of  not  educating  and  preparing  the  mind  by- 
means  of  native,  related,  and  young  beauties,  for  those 
of  foreign  and  distant  ages ;  but  of  precisely  reversing 
the  matter,  and  placing  him  among  strangers,  instead  of 
those  who  speak  his  mother  tongue.  The  quickest  com- 
prehension and  perception  of  all  the  secondary  tints  in  a 
poet's  work,  the  intensest  feeling  for  its  subject,  the  widest 
embrace  of  its  aim,  and  of  its  humor,  —  all  this  is  only 
possible  to  the  reader  of  his  own  countryman,  not  of  any 
foreign  wonderful  being ;  if  the  actual  conditions  of  his 
native  country  help  the  poet  to  color,  they  also  help  the 
reader  to  see:  she  was  a  Roman  who  at  once  inspired 
RafTaelle,  —  the  Roman,  —  as  a  mistress  and  a  Madonna. 
Must  we  in  the  North  dig  all  our  beauties  and  hopes,  like 
vases  and  urns,  out  of  sepulchres  ? 

We  may  do  so  rightly  if  we  speak  only  of  vases  and 
similar  objects  ;  that  is  to  say,  of  the  artistic  education  of 
the  eye.  The  most  beautiful  forms  should  be  first  pre- 
sented to  the  eye,  —  a  Grecian  Venus  to  a  Chinese.  But 
if  the  education  of  the  inner  sense  is  the  object,  offer  the 
nearest  first.  The  outer  sense  accustoms  itself,  by  degrees, 
to  the  most  preposterous  forms,  as  all  journals  of  fashion 
show,  and  becomes  attached  to  them  by  length  of  time ; 
the  inner  sense  is  formed  by  the  contemplation  of  childish 
beauties  to  the  comprehension  of  mental  beauty.  Begin 
with  Raffaelle  and  Gluck,  but  not  with  Sophocles. 

At  home  and  at  school  let  the  native  poets  be  first 
placed  on  the  altar  as  gods  of  the  household  and  the 
country;  let  the  little  child  rise  from  the  lesser  to  the 
greater  gods.  What  love  of  country  must  not  that  hang- 
ing on  the  lips  of  native  poets  inspire !  And  to  what 
beautiful,  slow  reading  should  we  not  be  accustomed,  (for 


384  LEVANA. 

the  German  reads  everything  quickly  that  is  not  very  far 
removed  in  distance,  age,  and  language,)  if  one  of  Klop- 
stock's  odes,  for  instance,  were  as  critically  dissected  as 
one  of  Horace's  !  What  power  should  we  not  obtain  over 
our  own  language,  if,  at  the  age  when  schoolmasters 
usually  discourse  about  Pindar  and  Aristophanes,  we 
were  introduced  to  the  sonorous  odes  of  Klopstock  and 
Voss,  into  the  antique  temple  of  Goethe,  the  lofty  dome 
of  Schiller  !  For  even  our  own  language  must  speak  to 
us  according  to  a  model,  if  it  is  to  produce  any  effect. 
Hence  the  old  humanists  (and  some  modern  ones  too) 
wrote  Latin  best,  and  both  old  and  new  worldlings  write 
French  best,  and  both  parties  often  wrote  miserable  Ger- 
man: Leibnitz  and  the  Rectors  on  the  one  side,  and 
Frederick  the  Great  on  the  other,  confirm  my  observa- 
tion. 


CHAPTER    II. 

CLASSICAL   EDUCATION. 


§  149. 

FOR  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  begin  this  chapter  with 
the  request  that  the  reader  will  first  peruse,  in  the 
Invisible  Lodge,  Book  First,  the  supplement  headed 
"  Why  I  give  my  Gustavus  witty  and  bad  authors,  but 
forbid  the  classical,  I  mean  Greek  and  Latin  writers  " ; 
thereby  I  shall  be  spared  both  copying  and  printing  it 
over  again ;  and  also  the  bad  attempt  to  clothe  the  same 
thoughts,  or  soul,  with  another  body.  I  have  not  yet 
met  with  any  refutation  of  that  paragraph ;  nor,  during 


CLASSICAL    EDUCATION.  385 

the  twenty  years  which  have  elapsed  since  its  pubhca- 
tion,  have  I  been  able  to  refute  myself. 

What  follows  might  be  appended  to  a  second  or  third 
edition. 

I  ask  whether  those  men  who  have  given  us  Wieland's 
explanation  of  the  satires  of  Horace,  Voss's  translation 
of  Homer,  Schleiermacher's  introductory  translations  of 
Plato*s  discourses,  have  sprung  from  that  Latin  town 
which  Maupertuis  recommended  to  be  founded?  Only 
men  of  mind,  of  power,  and  of  education,  completed  by 
more  and  higher  studies  than  mere  philology,  only  chil- 
dren born  on  fortunate  days,  such  as  Goethe  and  Herder, 
have  ever  seen  the  spirit  of  antiquity  ;  the  rest  have  only 
beheld,  instead,  treasures  of  words,  and  gleanings  of  flow- 
ers. Is  it  not  madness  to  think  it  even  possible  that  a 
boy  of  fourteen  or  sixteen,  however  great  his  abilities,  can 
comprehend  the  harmony  of  poetry  and  deep  thought  con- 
tained in  one  of  Plato's  discourses,  or  the  worldly  persi- 
flage of  Horace's  satires,  when  the  genius  itself  has  not 
conducted  the  men  I  name  to  the  pure  cold  heights  of 
antiquity  until  long  after  the  fiery  season  of  youth? 
Why  do  teachers  demand  what  they  can  so  seldom  do 
themselves  ?  I  entreat  them  to  think  partly  of  the  indif- 
ference with  which  they  and  the  Italian  savans  await  the 
unrolling  of  the  eight  hundred  manuscripts  in  Herculane- 
um  ;  partly  of  the  stupidity  with  which  they  first  mistook, 
and  afterwards  criticised,  the  new  Greek  spirit  of  Goethe 
in  his  elegies  on  the  antique  at  Weimar ;  partly  of  the 
numberless  mistakes  they  have  made  in  attributing  a  Gre- 
cian resemblance  to  many  a  flat  production,  merely  on 
account  of  its  German  dulness  and  French  form,  and 
denying  it  to  such  pure,  powerful  works  as  those  of  Her- 
der.    And  does  not  the  preference  which  the  youth  of  our 

17  Y 


386  LEVANA. 

universities  manifests  towards  every  new  hairy  comet, 
really  show  what  is  effected  by  the  ancient  astronomy  in 
our  youthful  training-places  ?  And  is  it  possible,  even  if 
all  other  things  were  different,  that  the  tender,  indivisible 
form  of  beauty  can  be  appreciated  if  grammatic  divisions 
break  it,  like  the  Medicean  Venus,  into  thirteen  frag- 
ments, and  thirty  smaller  pieces  ?  What,  in  this  case,  the 
youth  may  gladly  confound  with  the  enjoyment  of  the 
whole,  and  with  the  goddess  of  flowers,  is  the  pleasure 
derived  from  some  wayside  flower  in  the  sandy  desert  of 
philological  exercises  ;  and  the  ordinary  teacher  mistakes 
his  sand-bath  for  the  floral  deity.  This  perversity  causes 
the  study  of  the  ancients,  which  must  present  its  casket 
of  phrases  at  every  boy's  toilet,  to  give  his  concetti  to  the 
Italian,  his  host  of  synonymes  to  the  English,  and  to  the 
German  every  taste  which  he  can  find.  And  thus  the 
new  age  is  lost  to  us  by  the  wounds  of  beauty. 

§  150. 

Let  antiquity  be  the  Venus  and  morning  star  which 
rises  over  the  evening  of  our  North.  It  depends  on  our 
position,  with  regard  to  the  star  of  beauty,  whether  it 
shall  shine  upon  us  with  a  full  or  only  a  partial  light. 
The  language  of  the  ancients  is  a  very  different  thing. 
So,  again,  is  the  spirit  of  their  history,  or  subject ;  and, 
thirdly,  the  spirit  of  their  form,  or  poetry. 

The  learning  of  the  ancient  languages,  and  their  har- 
monic beauty,  has  no  prematurity  to  dread  ;  but  why  are 
these  canonical  writings  of  the  spirit  desecrated  into  books 
for  teaching  the  alphabet  and  reading  ?  Do  not  people 
understand  that  no  mind,  least  of  all  a  child's,  can  turn  at 
once  in  such  opposite  directions  as  language  and  subject, 
even  though  it  be  a  poet's  subject,  require  ? 


CLASSICAL    EDUCATION.  387 

Especial  care  should  be  taken  never  to  reduce  a  reality 
to  a  mere  arrangement  of  words,  particularly  because  the 
recollection  rejects  as  indigestible  all  single,  isolated  mat- 
ters. If  the  fact  stands  prominently  forth,  the  word  or 
name  is  often  lost  sight  of.  Thus  it  has  frequently  been 
remarked,  that  those  boys  find  it  most  difficult  to  remem- 
ber the  names  of  the  heroes  in  ancient  Greek  or  Roman 
story  who  have  their  deeds  impressed  most  vividly  on 
their  minds.  So,  in  novels,  the  interest  of  the  story,  and 
of  the  hero,  will  sometimes  make  a  young  lady  read  the 
whole  without  knowing  the  names  of  the  hero  or  heroine, 
which  yet  stand  upon  every  page,  and  cause  her  to  forget 
them  in  their  lives  as  completely  as  the  Greeks,  who, 
according  to  Lessing,  named  their  tragedies  after  persons 
who  did  not  appear  in  them. 

What  Greek  or  Latin  books  are  the  most  suitable  for 
teaching  those  languages  ?  Partly  imitations,  which  may 
be  made  in  order  not  to  lead  a  deaf  and  dumb  spirit  to 
the  divine  oracles  of  the  ancients ;  partly  also  those  an- 
cient books  which  possess  most  interest  for  the  youthful 
mind :  for  instance,  the  younger  Pliny  (as  a  forerunner 
of  the  French  letter-writers),  and  even  the  elder  Pliny ; 
at  least  he  is  much  more  suitable  than  Tacitus,  so  full  of 
poison,  the  world,  and  life ;  also  Lucan,  Seneca,  Ovid, 
Martial,  Quinctilian,  Cicero's  youthful  orations,  &c. 

In  Greek  the  romantic  Odyssey,  in  spite  of  its  impor- 
tance, might  occupy  an  early  place,  then  Plutarch,  -3Elian, 
and  even  the  Plutarch  of  philosophers,  Diogenes  Laertius. 
The  ages  of  iron  and  brass,  like  the  metals  after  which 
they  are  named,  should  be  laid  at  once  on  the  surface,  and 
the  nobler  metals  raised  afterwards  upon  them.  In  short, 
to  obtain  strength,  observe  the  Grecian  law,  which  forbade 
atlik'tes  even  to  look  upon  beauties. 


388  LEVANA. 

The  fortifications  round  the  city  of  God  have  been  laid 
by  the  ancients  for  every  age  in  the  history  of  their  own. 
The  present  ranks  of  humanity  would  sink  irrecoverably 
if  the  youth  did  not  take  its  way  through  the  silent  tem- 
ple of  the  mighty  past  into  the  market-place  of  after  life. 
The  names  of  Socrates,  Cato,  Epaminondas,  and  others, 
are  pyramids  of  the  power  of  will.  Rome,  Athens,  Sparta, 
are  the  three  crowning  cities  of  the  giant  Geryon  ;  and 
after  ages  fix  their  eyes  on  the  youth  as  on  the  primitive 
mountains  of  humanity.  Not  to  know  the  ancients  is  to 
be  an  ephemeron,  which  neither  sees  the  sun  rise  nor 
set.  But  do  not  expose  this  antique  temple  as  though  it 
were  a  receptacle  for  cast-off  customs  and  phrases,  and  as 
though  its  holy  relics,  instead  of  being  worshipped,  might, 
like  warriors'  bones,"  be  converted  into  knife-handles,  and 
the  like.  The  man  can  draw  the  history  of  the  ancients 
from  their  own  springs  ;  the  child  may  draw  them  from 
the  man :  one  ancient  alone  I  would  except,  Plutarch, 
from  whose  hand  the  young  may  receive  the  animating 
palm-wine  of  the  mighty  past.  But  schoolmasters  will- 
ingly sacrifice  the  purification  of  the  soul  by  ancient 
history  to  a  pure  Grecian.  So  Demosthenes,  destitute 
of  ornament,  poor  in  flowery  garlands,  rich  in  chains  of 
argument,  and  rich  in  ands,  is  sacrificed  to  sounding, 
flowery  Cicero. 

It  were  surely  well  to  consult  the  age  and  advancement 
of  the  pupils  in  schools,  and  begin  with  the  easier  classical 
authors,  Cicero,  Virgil,  Livy,  Herodotus,  Anacreon,  Tyr- 
taeus,  Euripides ;  afterwards  advancing  to  the  more  difii- 
cult,  Horace,  Caesar,  Lucretius,  Sophocles,  Plato,  Aris- 
tophanes. Here,  as  is  natural,  that  orderly  dishonor  is 
scorned  by  which  masters  place  the  difiiculty  of  under- 
standing an  author  in  the  phrases,  rather  than  in  the 


classijcal  education.  389 

higher  spirit ;  just  similarly  in  a  French  school  Goethe 
would  be  read  by  the  lower  classes,  Schiller  by  the  sec- 
ond, Haller  by  the  first,  and  I  by  nobody.  I  call  Virgil 
an  easy  classical  author ;  Caesar  a  difficult  one  ;  the  odes 
of  Horace  are  easy,  his  satires  difficult ;  Klopstock  is 
oftener  easy  than  Goethe,  because  merely  verbal  diffi- 
culties may  be  overcome  by  teaching  and  industry,  but 
mental  difficulties  only  by  the  maturity  of  thought,  which 
comes  with  years. 

If  it  be  asked  where  time  is  to  be  found  for  the  so- 
called  knowledge  of  things,  and  the  studies  whereby  a 
livelihood  is  to  be  obtained,  since  their  subjects  constantly 
increase,  and  we  resemble  an  army,  the  last  ranks  of 
which  must  march  quickest,  —  I  tranquilly  answer.  Give 
natural  philosophy  and  natural  history,  astronomy  and 
geometry,  and  abundant  supplies  of  "  bread  studies,"  in 
the  school-rooms  and  lecture-rooms  of  your  gymnasiums  ; 
and  in  so  doing  you  will  give  the  boys  ten  times  more 
pleasure  than  they  receive  from  the  unfolding  of  the 
mummy-bandages  of  the  ancient  graces ;  thus,  too,  you 
impart  the  common  nourishment  needed  by  both  the 
future  divisions  of  your  pupils  into  sons  of  the  muses  and 
sons  of  labor.  Then  the  higher  schools  are  reserved  for 
the  instructions  of  the  greatest  teachers,  the  ancients. 


NINTH  FRAGMENT,    OR    CONCLUSION. 


§151. 
TREATISE  on  education  does  not  include 
the  theory  of  instruction,  whose  wide  realm 
embraces  the  mistakes  of  all  sciences  and  arts ; 
nor  the  theory  of  remedies,  which  would  re- 
quire libraries  instead  of  volumes  for  the  complication  of 
mistakes,  years,  positions,  and  relations.  At  the  same 
time  no  science  is  entirely  disconnected  from  the  rest ; 
the  feet  cannot  move  without  the  hands. 

§  152. 
Lavater,  in  a  painted  series  of  four-and-twenty  faces, 
converted  a  frog's  head  into  an  Apollo's  :  I  would  that  a 
poem  could,  in  a  similar  way,  depict  the  restoration  of 
some  naturally  gifted  but  ruined  child  to  the  pure  features 
of  humanity,  instead  of  taking  a  sun-god  to  school  as 
Xenophon  and  Rousseau  did.  Yes,  one  might  exhibit 
an  educational  history  of  many  false  cures  effected  on  the 
same  human  limb ;  and  it  would  be  nothing  else  than 
useful  and  difficult.  How  often  has  not  the  ill-set  arm  of 
humanity  to  be  broken  afresh  so  as  to  be  rightly  healed ! 

§  153. 
The  best  and  most  complete  education  cannot  exhibit 
its  true  power  upon  one  child,  but  upon  a  number  of 


CONCLUSION.  391 

united  children ;  —  romantic  Cyropedagogues  of  one  indi- 
vidual should  think  of  this  :  —  a  lawgiver  influences  mul- 
titudes by  multitudes  ;  one  Jew  alone  could  not  produce 
a  Moses.  But  this  very  Mosaic  people  —  which  has 
spread  unaltered  through  the  ocean  of  all  time,  as  sea- 
plants  in  all  the  zones  of  the  ocean,  and  has  retained  its 
Mosaic  coloring  even  when  burning  Africa  has  changed 
its  bodily  hue  —  is  the  strongest  witness  to  the  power  of 
education,  for,  during  its  dispersion,  the  Mosaic  education 
of  the  people  can  only  be  maintained  by  private  educa- 
tion. Let  this  fact  inspire  all  parents  with  courage  to 
disregard  all  that  is  malignant  in  the  future  into  which 
they  must  send  their  children. 

§  154. 

For  the  same  reason  this  courage  should  not  be  les- 
sened by  a  well-known  contradictory  appearance ;  namely* 
that  children,  like  plants  acclimatized  to  the  nursery  and 
school-room,  can  scarcely  be  recognized  in  a  strange 
apartment,  in  a  Carriage,  in  the  country,  or  at  midnight. 
"  It  was  all  forced  fruit,"  says  then  the  good,  vexed  father, 
"  and  I  have  lost  my  labor  and  my  hope."  But  if  the 
angry  man  will  then  sit  down  and  consider  that  he,  a 
plant  equally  acclimatized  to  his  position,  has  frequently 
been  made  unlike  himself  by  strangeness  of  place  or  cir- 
cumstances, yet  with  very  transitory  injury  to  his  powers, 
he  may  cool  his  wrath,  by  applying  the  same  observation, 
though  in  a  stronger  degree,  to  his  children,  who,  being 
more  excitable,  feeble,  and  inexperienced,  must  naturally 
obey  and  succumb  to  every  new  presence. 

§  155. 
In  some  circumstances  we  cannot  be  sufficiently  diffuse 


392  LEVANA. 

with  children,  in  others  not  sufficiently  short.  Speak  at 
greatest  length  in  tales,  and  when  you  wish  to  give  the 
passions  time  to  cool,  as  a  kind  of  rhetorical  signal  that 
something  important  is  to  come.  The  utmost  brevity 
should  be  used  in  confronting  logical  sentences  for  exer- 
cise, —  in  forbidding,  —  and  further,  in  necessary  punish- 
ments ;  then,  after  the  billows  are  laid,  loquacity  may  be 
advantageously  resumed. 

§  156. 

If  a  father  is  boldly  obedient  to  the  right  rule  of  letting 
a  boy,  especially  one  destined  to  a  learned  profession,  lie 
fallow  during  the  first  five  years  of  life,  only  learning 
what  he  teaches  himself,  so  that  his  body  may  become 
strong  enough  to  bear  its  future  mental  treasures,  let  him 
be  prepared  when  the  child  first  goes  to  school  for  a 
difficulty  which  may,  perhaps,  last  some  months  :  it  is 
this,  —  that  the  boy,  hitherto  accustomed  only  to  his  own 
mental  teaching,  cannot  immediately  apply  with  ease  to 
instruction  from  without,  but  receives  the  foreign  rays  at 
first  as  in  a  dispersing  concave  glass.  But  by  and  by 
they  will  be  collected  and  combined  by  a  convex  mirror. 

Since  I  have  again  fallen  on  the  subject  of  instruction, 
which,  especially  in  later  years,  becomes  continually  more 
and  more  closely  combined  with  education,  I  know  not 
how  better  to  make  amends  for  my  digression  than  by 
pursuing  it,  and  saying  that  a  boy  of  five  years  old  can 
be  sent  to  no  better  preparatory  school  for  a  learned  edu- 
cation, though  but  for  a  few  hours  daily,  than  to  one  of 
only  three  classes,  Latin,  mathematics,  and  history.  In 
fact,  these  three  kinds  of  knowledge  attune  the  mind  to 
the  threefold  harmony  of  education.  First,  the  Latin 
language,  by  its  brevity  and  great  dissimilarity  to  our 


CONCLUSION.  393 

own,  exercises  the  child's  mind  in  logic,  and  is,  therefore, 
a  preparatory  school  of  philosophy.  Brevity  of  speech 
gives  comprehensiveness  of  thought.  Secondly,  mathe- 
matics, as  a  mediator  between  the  intuitions  of  the  senses 
and  of  the  mind,  excites  and  forms  a  power  distinct  from 
philosophy,  and  not  sufficiently  esteemed  in  its  connection 
with  the  material  universe  ;  which,  by  the  analyzing  of 
space  from  without,  and  time  from  within,  brings  the 
ultimate  conclusions  of  numbers  within  the  power  of 
thought.  Thirdly,  history,  like  religion,  unites  all  learn- 
ing and  power ;  especially  ancient  history,  that  is,  the 
history  of  the  nations  of  the  youthful  world,  Grecian  and 
Roman,  Jewish  and  early  Christian.  As  the  epic  poem 
and  the  romance  may  be  made  to  contain  the  floating 
materials  of  all  knowledge,  their  mother.  History,  may  still 
more  easily  be  made  into  the  firm  pulpit  of  every  moral 
and  religious  opinion  ;  and  every  department  of  morality, 
moral  theology,  moral  philosophy  and  casuistry,  finds  its 
leader  in  ancient  history.  The  young  heart  lives  in  the 
mighty  youthful  past,  and,  by  this  active  art  of  poetry, 
buried  centuries  are  raised  from  the  dead  in  a  few  school- 
hours.  The  devils  removed  into  historic  distance  grieve 
less,  and  tempt  far  less,  than  when  standing  in  our  pres- 
ence ;  the  angels,  on  the  contrary,  cleared  by  distance 
from  neighboring  mists,  shine  and  sparkle  more  brilliantly 
than  ever ;  and  they  tell  us  what  there  is  yet  to  do  in  the 
future  which  may  be  worthy  of  the  past.  History  —  if 
you  are  not  determined  to  make  it  into  the  biography  of 
the  Devil  —  is  the  third  Bible  ;  for  the  book  of  nature  is 
the  second ;  and  ancient  history  alone  can  convert  and 
improve  modem  history. 

The  father  of  the  Levana  —  although  in  the  case  of  a 
goddess  this  name  would  be  more  humbly  and  appropri- 
17* 


394  LEVANA. 

ately  changed  into  worshipper  —  has  (he  ventures  now 
to  recall  to  himself)  kept  the  promise  of  the  Preface  lo 
jest  but  little.  He  has  wanted  room,  —  but  that  another 
book  will  furnish,  —  rather  than  occasion  for  two  satires, 
both  directed  against  one  evil,  —  the  affiction  of  children, 
—  teaching.  A  short,  serious  epitome  must  be  permitted. 
Certainly,  as  regards  children's  sufferings,  we  must  ad- 
mit that  nature,  which  makes  them  cry  sooner  than  laugh, 
has  the  precedence  of  us.  Not  the  human  egg,  but  the 
bee's,  is  laid  upon  honey.  Among  all  entrances  into  new 
circumstances  none  is  so  important  as  that  into  life,  and 
there  also  the  new  apprentice  must  pay  his  footing  ;  or, 
as  a  novice  in  life's  mysteries,  he,  like  the  ancient  Greek, 
must  be  severely  scourged ;  or  he  must  receive  that 
which  in  prisons  —  and  such  Plato  esteemed  the  earth  to 
be  —  is  called  a  welcome,  which  does  not  consist  in  the 
old  German  sparkling  goblet  {that  his  mother's  breast 
offers  him),  but  in  what  most  would  think  a  flogging. 
According  to  the  Catholic  Church,  children,  those  of 
Bethlehem  under  Herod,  were  the  first  martyrs  ;  it  is  the 
emblem  of  what  still  exists.  According  to  the  same 
Church,  the  unbaptized  passed  either  into  hell  or  into 
purgatory ;  but  they  pass  between  the  two  fires  upon 
earth,  if  they  pursue  the  way  from  the  first  to  the  second 
sacrament.  If  baptism  be  necessary  to  salvation,  so  also 
is  the  sacrament  of  the  Eucharist ;  therefore  before  the 
Lord's  Supper,  the  feast  of  love,  you  justly  repress  what- 
ever seems  rather  to  resemble  hate.  And  so  the  tears 
which  Garrick  could  draw  by  the  mere  repetition  of  the 
alphabet,  the  child  soon  learns  to  shed  by  itself.  But 
among  all  the  schoolmasters  who  have  flogged  either  the 
author  or  his  readers,  and  endeavored  to  enlighten  their 
minds  with  the  cane  as  with  a  pedagogic  lamp-post,  or 


CONCLUSION.  395 

wlio  have  understood  how  to  use  their  fists  like  players 
on  the  French  horn,  who  apply  theirs  to  the  wide  mouth 
of  the  horn  and  draw  forth  its  delicate  semi-tones  ;  yet 
among  all  schoolmasters,  I  say,  it  is  a  rare  and  difficult 
thing  to  find  a  John  Jacob  Hauberle.  Which .  of  us  can 
boast,  like  Hauberle,  of  having  administered,  during  his 
schoolmastership  of  fifly-one  years  and  seven  months, 
911,527*  strokes  of  the  cane  and  124,000  of  the  rod; 
also  20,989  blows  with  the  ruler ;  not  only  10,235  boxes 
on  the  ear,  but  also  7,905  tugs  at  the  same  member ;  and 
a  sum  total  of  1,115,800  blows  with  the  knuckles  on  the 
head?  Who  besides  Jacob  Hauberle  has  given  22,763 
impositions,  partly  in  the  Bible,  partly  in  the  catechism, 
partly  in  the  Psalm-book,  partly  in  the  grammar,  as  with 
four  syllogistic  logical  figures,  or  a  sonate  a  quatre  mains'^ 
And  did  he  not  threaten  the  rod  to  1,707  children  who 
did  not  receive  it,  and  make  777  kneel  upon  round  hard 
peas,  and  631  upon  a  sharp-edged  piece  of  wood,  to  which 
are  to  be  added  a  corps  of  5,001  riders  on  the  wooden 
horse  ?  For  if  any  one  had  done  this,  why  did  he  not 
keep  an  account  of  his  blows,  like  Hauberle,  from  whom 
alone  we  have  to  learn  this  interesting  intelhgence  as 
from  a  Flogging  Diary,  or  Martyrologium,  or  Imperial 
School  Flogging  Journal  ?  But  I  fear  most  teachers 
only  deserve  the  contemptuous  surname  of  C^esarius,  who 
was  called  "  the  Mild "  because  he  suffered  no  nun  to 
receive  more  than  six-and-thirty  lashes. 

If  the  benefit  to  be  derived  from  thus  converting  life 
into  a  hell  be  anything  more  than  seeming,  good  infernal 
machines  —  in  which  we  always  succeed  better  than  in 
celestial  machines  —  ought  to  be  made  for  the  purpose, 

*  These  numbers  are  to  be  found  in  the  twelfth  quarterly  number 
of  the  Pedagogic  Entertainment  for  Teachers. 


396  LEVANA. 

and  people  attached  to  them  expressly  to  torment.  No 
one  torments  better  than  one  who  has  himself  been  tor- 
mented, —  monks,  for  instance.  If  you  wish  me  to  weep, 
says  Horace,  you  must  first  weep  yourself.  And  the 
schoolmaster  can  do  the  last ;  no  one  could  have  better 
sat  to  an  Albert  Durer,  who  loved  to  paint  crucifixions, 
than  the  united  body  of  German  schoolmasters ;  and  if 
the  crucifixion  came  at  the  conclusion  of  Christ's  ministry, 
with  us  they  accompany  each  other.  England,  which 
gives  a  sub-rector  a  yearly  salary  of  a  thousand  pounds, 
will  apparently  attain  this  end  less  quickly  —  although  in 
all  its  schools  it  will  exalt  the  rod  to  the  post  of  educa- 
tional honor  —  than  countries  where,  as  in  Prussia,  the 
whole  average  salaries  of  schoolmasters  amount  only  to 
250  thalers ;  so  we  may  fairly  reckon  that  184  masters 
may  be  pointed  out,  who  only  receive  from  five  to  ten 
thalers.*  Five  thalers !  —  Certainly  it  might  be  less, 
and  in  Baireuth  it  is  so ;  for  there  a  village  schoolmaster 
receives  from  every  pupil,  for  the  months  of  November, 
December,  January,  February,  March,  and  April,  twenty- 
four  kreuzers,  or  a  monthly  stipend  of  four  kreuzers. 
But  the  schoolmaster  —  which  perhaps  would  not  be 
expected  —  grows  fat  in  the  summer  holidays,  because 
he  goes  out  to  pasture  with  the  cattle  (it  is  only  in  winter 
that  he  is  a  shepherd  of  souls).  The  evil  effects  of  this 
system  soon  break  out  in  him,  for  he  drives  the  cattle 
away  from  wrong  roads  with  much  fewer  blows  than  the 
children.     The  receipt  of  four  kreuzers  repaid  by  pain  ! 

Isocrates  wept   from   shame   to   receive  college   fees, 
amounting  to  three  thousand  pounds,  from  his  hundred 
pupils  :  might  not  shame  and  weeping  find  a  more  appro- 
priate place   here  ?     Happily  the   state,  which  converts 
*  Alg.  Lit.  ZeituDg.    No.  267.     1806. 


CONCLUSION.  397 

schools  into  industrial  schools  for  the  pupils  rather  than 
the  masters,  declares  that  none  but  clergymen  shall  be 
schoolmasters,  and  students  of  divinity  house  tutors  for 
the  higher  classes  of  pupils  (as  the  Dalai  Lama  may  only 
be  attended  by  priests).  Theologians  are  active  Theopa- 
schists,  and  every  Bible  comes  into  their  hands  sooner 
than  the  Bihlia  in  nummis  ;  for  it  has  ever  been  a  Prot- 
estant principle,  in  order  not  to  separate  them  too.  far 
from  the  Catholic  clergy,  to  compel  the  Lutheran  minis- 
ters strictly  to  keep  the  vows  of  poverty.  In  short, 
they  have  little  ;  therefore,  all  the  more  is  to  be  taken 
from  them  by  giving  them  the  office  of  schoolmasters. 

If  we  ascend  to  the  higher  scholastic  positions,  we 
find  that  where  the  young  men,  having  attained  the  honor 
of  the  gymnasium,  need  fewer  mortifications,  there  also 
the  teachers  require  fewer ;  thus,  a  head-master  always 
receives  a  trifle  more  pay  than  his  subordinate.  To 
which  is  to  be  added  a  second  reason  ;  that  the  latter  has 
more  work,  and,  consequently,  requires  more  spurring, 
more  oil  in  the  joints  and  wheels,  to  accomplish  his 
heavier  movements,  —  that  is  to  say,  more  unemployed 
gastric  juice.  For,  according  to  an  ancient  political  law, 
the  labor  and  trouble  of  an  office  increase  in  reverse  pro- 
portion to  its  remuneration,  and,  where  the  former  are  alto- 
gether wanting,  there  that  law  of  the  artisans  is  acted 
upon,  according  to  which,  every  travelling  journeyman 
who  cannot  find  work  in  a  place  receives  a  present. 

It  is,  however,  so  ordered,  that  even  in  the  highest 
school  offices,  as  in  fruitful  Hindostan,  where  there  are 
yearly  three  harvests  and  a  famine,  the  four  quarterly 
harvests  shall  not  always  exclude  a  famine.  As  regards 
drink,  we  know,  from  Langen's  clerical  law,  that  Karpzov 
bestowed  on  all  school-teachers  the  privilege  of  exemption 


398  LEVANA. 

from  tax  on  all  liquors.  In  this,  the  state  has  not  had  so 
much  regard,  as  at  first  appears,  to  the  wants  and  thirst 
of  the  profession,  but  has  followed  the  old  custom  of 
giving  still  greater  privileges  to  schoolmasters ;  such 
as  exemption  from  the  taxes  on  Tokay  wine  and  pheas- 
ants, and  license  for  all  their  pearls  and  jewels  to  enjoy 
the  immunities  of  students'  goods. 

§  157. 

But  enough  of  this  !  I  spoke  above  of  a  hostile  future 
for  our  children :  every  father  holds  out  this  prospect, 
which  he  has  inherited  from  his  own.  Who,  indeed,  has 
been  so  blessed,  when  finally  closing  his  eyes,  as  to  con- 
template two  fair  worlds,  his  own  yet  hidden,  and  one 
left  behind  for  his  children  ?  The  whole  of  humanity 
always  seems  to  us  a  salt  sea,  which  the  sweet  showers 
and  streams  of  individuals  do  not  sweeten  ;  yet  the  pure 
water  on  the  earth  is  as  little  dried  up  as  the  salt  sea ; 
nay,  it  even  rises  from  it.  Therefore,  O  father,  the 
higher  thou  thinkest  thyself,  whether  truly  or  not,  exalted 
above  thy  age,  (consequently  above  its  daughters,  whom 
yet  thou  must,  however  unwillingly,  see  thy  children 
marry,)  all  the  more  thank-offerings  hast  thou  to  lay  on 
the  altar  of  the  past,  which  has  made  thee  so  noble  ;  and 
how  canst  thou  better  present  them  to  thy  parents  than 
by  the  hands  of  thy  children  ? 

What,  then,  are  children  really  ?  Their  constant  pres- 
ence, and  their  often  disturbing  wants,  conceal  from  us 
the  chaiTois  of  these  angelic  forms,  which  we  know  not 
how  to  name  with  sufficient  beauty  and  tenderness, — 
blossoms,  dew-drops,  stars,  butterflies.  But  when  you 
kiss  and  love  them,  you  give  and  feel  all  their  names ! 
A  single  child  upon  the  earth  would  seem  to  us  a  won- 


CONCLUSION.  399 

derful  angel,  come  from  some  distant  home,  who,  unac- 
customed to  our  strange  language,  manners,  and  air, 
looked  at  us  speechless  and  inquisitive,  but  pure  as  a 
Raffaelle's  infant  Jesus ;  and  hence,  we  can  always  adopt 
every  new  child  into  the  child's  place,  but  not  every  new 
friend  into  the  friend's  place.  And  daily  from  the  un- 
known world  these  pure  beings  are  sent  upon  the  wild 
earth ;  and  sometimes  they  alight  on  slave-coasts,  or  bat- 
tle-fields, or  in  prison  for  execution  ;  and  sometimes  in 
flowery  valleys,  and  on  lofty  mountains ;  sometimes  in  a 
most  baleful,  sometimes  in  a  most  holy  age ;  and  after  the 
loss  of  their  only  father  they  seek  an  adopted  one  here 
below. 

I  once  composed  a  poem  on  the  Last  Day,  and  the  two 
last  children :  —  its  latter  part  will  serve  for  a  conclusion. 

"  So  go  down  to  the  earth,"  said  the  angel  to  two  little 
naked  souls,  "  and  be  born  as  brother  and  sister  !  "  It 
will  be  very  pretty  down  there,  said  they  both,  and  flew 
hand  in  hand  to  the  earth,  which  was  already  enveloped 
in  the  flames  of  the  last  day,  and  from  which  the  dead 
were  rising.  "  Look  there  !  "  said  the  brother,  "  these 
are  very  big,  tall  children;  the  flowers,  compared  to 
them,  are  quite  little ;  they  will  certainly  carry  us  about 
everywhere,  and  tell  us  about  everything ;  they  are  very 
large  angels,  sister  !  "  "  But  see,"  answered  she,  "  that 
great  angel,  and  every  one  has  clothing  round  him ;  — 
and  the  morning  red  glows  over  the  whole  earth."  "  But 
look,"  said  he,  "  the  sun  has  fallen  upon  the  earth,  and  it 
burns  everywhere  ;  and  there  a  gigantic  dew-drop  makes 
fiery  waves,  and  look  how  the  great  angels  plunge  into 
it."  "  They  stretch  their  hands  upwards,"  said  she,  "  and 
kiss  them  to  us."  "  And  hark ! "  he  said,  "  how  the  thun- 
der sings,  and  the  stars  dance  about  among  those  great 


400 


LEVANA. 


children."  "  Which  are  the  great  children,"  asked  she, 
"  who  are  to  be  our  two  parents  ?  "  "  Dost  thou  not  see," 
replied  he,  "  how  these  angels  sleep  under  the  earth,  and 
then  rise  up  from  it  ?  Let  us  fly  quickly  !  "  And  the 
children  approached  nearer  to  the  flaming  earth,  and  said, 
"  Look  kindly  upon  us,  ye  parents,  and  do  not  hurt  us,  and 
play  with  us  a  long,  long  time,  and  tell  us  many  tales,  and 
kiss  us ! " 

They  were  born  just  as  the  world,  full  of  sins,  vanished 
and  they  remained  alone ;  their  little  hands  played  with 
the  flames,  and  at  last  they  also,  like  Adam  and  Eve, 
were  driven  away,  and  the  world  closed  with  the  Para- 
dise of  Children. 


Zciy  Of  XHl 


Cambridge  :    Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Uigelow,  &  Co. 


AK  INITIAL  fI^^OF  2^«!S 

WIUU  BE  ASSESSED  '^0>1;*'^^''?hE  PENALTY 
TH^S  BOOK  ON  ^H/^^JI^^s  ON  THE  FOURTH 
W,UU  >f''=''^*f  ^J°oroN    THE    SEVENTH    DAY 

DAY     AND     TO     $1""  

OVERDUE. 


LD  21-l00m-8,'34 


10  ^7010 


36;^, 


7^01 


